

## SODIUM

(Vol. 1)

### Harbinger

By

Stephen Arseneault

Published By:

Stephen Arseneault

Copyright © 2012-2017 Stephen Arseneault

" _Freedom is every man's right. Freedom is every man's responsibility. What's the use of living if you can't live free? What's the use in dying if you can't die trying!"_

— _Stephen Arseneault_

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www.arsenex.com

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All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used, reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law, or in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Novels written by Stephen Arseneault

SODIUM Series (six novels)

A six-book series that takes Man from his first encounter with aliens all the way to a fight for our all-out survival. Do we have what it takes to rule the galaxy?

AMP Series (eight novels)

Cast a thousand years into the future beyond SODIUM. This eight-book series chronicles the struggles of Don Grange, a simple package deliveryman, who is thrust into an unimaginable role in the fight against our enemies. Can we win peace and freedom after a thousand years of war?

OMEGA Series (eight novels)

Cast two thousand years into the future beyond AMP. The Alliance is crumbling. When corruption and politics threaten to throw the allied galaxies into chaos, Knog Beutcher gets caught in the middle. Follow along as our hero is thrust into roles that he never expected nor sought. Espionage, intrigue, political assassinations, rebellions and full-on revolutions, they are all coming to Knog Beutcher's world!

HADRON Series (eight novels)

HADRON is a modern day story unrelated to the SODIUM-AMP-OMEGA trilogy series. After scientists using the Large Hadron Collider discover dark matter, the world is plunged into chaos. Massive waves of electromagnetic interference take out all grid power and forms of communication the world over. Cities go dark, food and water supplies are quickly used up, and marauders rule the highways. Months after the mayhem begins, and after mass starvation has taken its toll, a benevolent alien species arrives from the stars. Only, are they really so benevolent? Find out in HADRON as Man faces his first real challenge to his dominance of Earth!

ARMS Series (eight novels)

ARMS is cast in one possible future, where Earth was nearing an apocalyptic event. Two competing colony ships were built, taking five million inhabitants each through a wormhole to a pair of newly discovered planets. The planets were settled and not long after the colonies looked to the surrounding star systems for ownership and expansion, which led to a centuries-long war between them. A truce was declared after the aggressor side began to lose ground.

Tawnish Freely and Harris Gruberg are genetically engineered Biomarines. Their lives have been dedicated to fighting the war. With a truce declared, they find themselves struggling to find work among a population that fears them. Work is found only by delving into the delivery of illegal arms to the outer colonies. Things go awry when they discover their illicit dealings may just be the catalyst that brings back the Great War. They are determined to prevent that from happening.

FREEDOM Series (eight novels)

After a period of domination over the lesser alien species of the galaxy, humanity finds itself enslaved for nearly five hundred generations. A highly addictive drug called Shackle has made Humans little more than worker drones. They are abused, sold, traded, and hunted, valued only in credits. But a mysterious virus is sweeping through the Human population, altering gut bacteria, making them immune to the drug that subjugates them. Humans are becoming aware of their condition. They will fight for their freedom.

Find them all at www.arsenex.com

### Chapter 1

### _______________________

**I** was sometimes an obsessive-compulsive when challenged. That personality trait could be a blessing or a curse depending on the circumstance. The circumstance I was about to face would drastically change the course of my life, and possibly the fate of the world...

It was early June of the summer of 1957. An adventure getaway with family and friends had just begun. The adventure was to the wilds of Yosemite National Forest in California. We were exploring the viability of setting up a ten day hike for my friend's outfitting business. If our own undertaking went well, he would offer the same hike as a guided wilderness tour to his clients. Hiking the Yosemite back-country was supposed to offer some of the best scenery nature could provide.

I wasn't an avid outdoorsman, so my contribution to the excursion was to gauge the terrain's difficulty for the common man. Coming in at only five-foot-six, my short legs would be in for a real workout. While being middle-aged I was not feeble, but neither was I overly fit.

My torso had been rocking back and forth in the rear seat of a jeep for several hours as we bounced our way along an old Indian trail. I was riding in the back of the second vehicle in our group and had been holding on for dear life to a leather hand strap that was bolted to the side of the seat frame. It was the only thing that had kept me in the constantly bucking and jerking metal contraption. We were heading to our first night's camp.

My four companions always had great stories to tell whenever they returned from an adventure. I was looking forward to finally taking part in one. Little did I know it would be a story I could never tell. It was a story no one would believe unless they had been there and experienced it for themselves. The danger that lay ahead would call on me to summon a level of courage that at the time I did not have; self-confidence and bravery were not my stronger traits.

We were riding along a high trail that offered a steep incline on one side and a sixty-foot cliff that dropped into a ravine on the other. My earlier enjoyment of the awe-inspiring trip and the perfect weather was turning into apprehension and adventure fatigue. I had no doubt the expression of wonder that had once covered my face was now more of a scowl. Looking to my left, down over the edge, only caused my apprehension to grow.

As we came around a bend, the jeep bounced heavily and came to an abrupt stop. With that bounce I went up in the air, coming down hard on the back left side of the vehicle, my ribs scraping along the hard edge. Intense pain was now visible on my face.

The fall had bruised my ribs and knocked the breath out of me. The trail side had given way, probably due to erosion from the winter snow-melt. The jeep now tilted heavily over the cliff's edge.

In my shock and confusion, I began to helplessly roll off the left side. Through my squinted eyes, my brain panicked as I was faced with a long fall into the craggy, rock-infested ravine below. As I left the jeep's edge, my friend reached out from the driver's seat, making a lucky grab of my right arm; it was nearly pulled from its socket.

For several seconds I dangled over the ravine as Bruce, we called him Bull, held strong. His grip on the steering wheel kept him in place as he steadied himself. With a long, loud grunt, my friend since junior high pulled me with one arm up and over himself and into the now-vacant passenger seat of the precariously positioned vehicle.

Allie, Bull's wife, had sprung into action from that same seat, reeling out the cable from the jeep's winch. As I lay upside down, moaning, another pair of hands grabbed under my arms and pulled me out onto the safety of firm ground. It was Kyle, my soon-to-be brother-in-law.

Bull followed me out of the passenger side, moving carefully as not to send the vehicle over the edge before his escape. Meanwhile, Allie had found a tree and secured the cable. Just as Bull's first foot hit the ground, the cable tightened and held fast, stopping the jeep just as it began what would have been its death roll.

As fast as the cable pulled tight, Allie was back at the ratcheting winch pumping away. She worked the three-foot-long lever handle with her strong back and athletic legs, grunting with every pull. Inch by inch, she slowly moved the vehicle back to secure ground. Except for the pain I was now feeling, the whole episode seemed to be over almost before it had begun. We took a ten-minute break to rest and regain our composure.

Allie was not afraid of a little "heavy work," as she called it. For 1957, she was not your typical woman. At five-foot-eleven, she towered over most of the women of that day. She had an athletic build that was also feminine and very well proportioned. She often prided herself at sometimes being compared to Annie Oakley, only she would say she was much taller.

In the face of danger, Allie seemed fearless and quick minded. Those traits had saved her and Bull from a bear attack some years earlier, when she distracted the bear with a series of shouts just as it was about to maul her husband. It was a story Bull loved to retell whenever they made a new acquaintance.

Bull was a big ole country boy. At six-foot-five and 260 pounds, if riled, he could be an intimidating fella. And most of his weight was muscle. He had a quick wit and a big, toothy grin that somehow made everyone around him smile. Everybody liked Bull. If you met him under normal circumstance, he had a manner about him that quickly put you at ease.

Bull owned five sports-outfitting stores that served Atlanta and North Georgia. In the 1950s, Big Al's, named after his father, was the place to go for outdoor sports in the area. Through contact with an outfitter in Sacramento, arrangements for transfers from the airport and rental of the jeeps and gear were made. The vehicles had been towed and delivered to a trail head at Buck Meadow, along with most of the camping supplies. We were dropped off from separate vehicles shortly after.

The venture was to offer an outing into the wilds of America, where the first ten miles would be on wheels with the remaining eighty-seven on foot with backpacks. The Yosemite Sportsman Adventure Package was to be a two-week excursion when counting a flight from Atlanta, Georgia, to Sacramento, California, and back.

For me, the trip was to be a much needed break from the monotony of my daily life. I sold insurance—homeowner's, life, business, you name it— and I was good at it. My clientele were some of the wealthiest families and individuals in Atlanta. To me, selling wasn't particularly fun or exciting, but I was willing to work at it to bring home a good paycheck. Enough good that at one point I had managed to attract a stunningly beautiful wife.

I considered myself a decent-looking guy, and I was sensible, responsible, and had a good sense of humor. But my short stature, and the social situations of my job, had worked against me. Only months before the trip, my wife had left me for a much taller gentleman, one of my wealthy clients. It hadn't helped that my personality was a bit obtuse and self-centered; which was great for sales, but not so great on the romantic front. Her departure had left me in a funk, a funk I hoped the hike would alleviate.

After arriving at the base camp in the jeeps, my hero, Bull, got to work unpacking a tent. I took a seat on a nearby rock, looking around at the beauty of the early summer setting. My sister strode into view. She was a looker and smart, but she was also a big spender. To fund her habits, she kept Kyle busy selling autos down at the local dealership. Kyle had managed to make himself the lead salesman for 1955 and 1956. And with Susi's spending habits, he knew he would have to keep it up for each coming year.

Susi was my younger sister by six years. She taught history at a Junior High, and her students loved her. She had a degree in Education from the University of Georgia where she and Allie had been classmates, and had soon became fast friends. They were a strange pair, as they were complete opposites when apart. That would all change when they came together, with each one taking on certain characteristics of the other.

Allie was woodsy and athletic, while Susi was a bit prissy and much more typical of an upper-middle-class woman of that day. She had coiffed hair, pressed, conservative outfits, and horned-rim glasses with fake lenses to give her a more studious look while at work. Alone, Susi wouldn't get her hands dirty for any reason. But when her and Allie came together, the two suddenly became twins. Susi would go into the woods for a hike or shoot skeet, and Allie would dress to the nines and do a mean dinner party. None of us understood it, but we all respected it, and never questioned why.

Within an hour the tents were set up, a campfire was spitting flames, and the supplies had been unpacked. I felt like a heel as I sat by myself on a rock as the others made camp. With my bruised ribs, my usefulness was limited, and they were insistent on my resting. So, I watched as the four people who made up my little world moved about preparing for the day's end.

Once the camp was settled, several trout were fished from a nearby stream. They were cooked over a fire along with a package of salted beef the Sacramento outfitter had left in the jeeps as a gift. Surprisingly, the taste of the meal was something I would have expected to find in a high-end restaurant back in Atlanta. Filling our bellies was followed by an evening of camaraderie around the fire. My level of enjoyment over the trip was beginning to return.

Just after sunset, Bull started the evening with a tale told to him by the Sacramento outfitter. Several hikers had reported strange lights in the area. One had reported being watched by a demon, it's red eyes piercing the darkness of the night. I shook my head, knowing it was nothing more than an attempt at a scary campfire tale. The others laughed it off as well. Bull shrugged and insisted it was what he had been told.

The plan for the next day was to break camp early. We would be packing up unused supplies that would then be bound and hoisted up into the trees to keep it away from bears. We had arranged for the Sacramento outfitter to collect the jeeps and leftover supplies after our departure. Once out of base camp, we would have no contact with the civilized world until we reached the trail end at the town of Lundy. We had ten days of hiking ahead.

For protection, Bull carried a .45-caliber Colt M1911A1, while Kyle and Allie had Browning 9 mm HPs. Susi had a new Hi Standard .22. Bull also carried a 1956 Kodiak bear bow. It pulled fifty-seven pounds, making him the only one of us able to use it. His quiver only held four arrows, so he mentioned he had no plans of actually making use of the bow, unless an emergency should arise.

I was not a firearms enthusiast, having accidentally shot and injured my dog as a kid. I instead chose to carry the hickory Hillerich & Bradsby S44 baseball bat I'd had since my high school baseball days. It was the same bat Pat Ankenman had used when he played for the Brooklyn Dodgers during WWII. For being in the big leagues and weighing in at only 125 pounds, he was a remarkable player. In my younger days, his achievements had given me confidence I could overcome any physical hardships that came about because of my height. Handguns made me nervous, while my bat was an old friend.

Bull and Kyle shook their heads in disbelief when I had refused a more formidable weapon. I had repeatedly been told I would want more than three feet of wood between myself and a grizzly, should we have such an unfortunate encounter. I had countered more than once that my bat never needed reloading. For the trip, my protection would be limited to a circle with a five-foot radius.

After packing up, we began our eighty-seven-mile trek through the wilderness. I had a nervous energy about me. On one hand, I was excited to get going. On the other, I was dreading the physical pounding I was certain to be enduring. I forced myself to reason that if my sister could do it, well then... so could I.

Bull had flown out to Sacramento a month earlier to set up the trip. He was amazed and delighted at some of the new backpacking gear coming out of the area. We packed two ten-by-fifteen polyethylene tarps to share as shelter. They weighed almost nothing and rolled up nicely on top of my new lightweight aluminum pack frame. We had two hundred feet of nylon rope, which also provided a weight reduction. We also carried some of the first available nylon sleeping bags, which came in at less than six pounds each. The fifty-pound pack for a week in the wilderness was assuredly becoming a thing of the past.

The weight savings in the gear meant there was room for extra food or other nice-to-haves. I scowled as I pulled my pack on, at twenty-eight pounds it matched that of my sister, the lightest packs of our group. I was told the getup would lose weight as we went.

I returned a nod as I secured it with a front strap, wondering if I was being deceived. I gazed at the trail ahead as the others readied themselves. As we made our way out of base camp, I looked back fondly at the jeeps, resisting the urge to run back to the civilized world where beds, showers, and electricity were available to most all.

Had I known what was coming, I never would have left the safety and security of Atlanta. There is something to be said about the bliss of not knowing everything, especially if you are the only one who wants to talk about it. Sometimes you have to accept whatever it is life throws at you, just putting down one foot in front of another. I expected to be doing exactly that for the next 87 miles.

### Chapter 2

### _______________________

**T** he trail out of base camp took us through a deep ravine and into a heavily wooded valley. We were headed for Lake Eleanor and did not expect to make it there before sunset. I had found the uneven ground to be tough on the ankles. The others had each been out training for months, whenever they had the chance. I had only done the minimum... for which I knew I was about to pay.

Once well into the ravine, we were completely cut off from the outside world for the next ten days. The surroundings were beautiful no matter which direction you looked. The clear, cool mountain air moved effortlessly through the evergreens. Our footsteps were the only sounds, except for the occasional bird chirping a warning to others.

The further we moved into the back-country, the more snowbanks we saw. In early June there were still snow pockets to be found in the shady areas of the high elevations. The bright white of the pockets stood in stark contrast to the multitudes of dull-gray boulders and dark-green trees. The very ground itself was an immense mountain of granite.

The time passed quickly as we made our way up a valley along the Tuolumne River. Each of us had smiles on our faces, and we each were pointing and gawking at every little interesting view that nature had to offer. Everything around us was pure in color and natural in design.

Susi had been using her camera at every opportunity. Before the trip's end, she planned to have rolls of pictures for Bull and Allie to choose from for promoting the adventure package. Almost every shot she took would look like what you would see on a postcard. The back-country of Yosemite National Forest was a wild and beautiful place.

A slight breeze blew into our faces as we walked. We startled numerous deer and spooked a number of jackrabbits. As the valley narrowed a bit, we came upon a black bear. It was huge.

I had never seen one up close and I found I had no desire to now. Bull and Allie advised we stay well clear of it, as bears would sometimes charge if they felt threatened. I had no desire to fend off a bear with my bat, so I stayed in the back of our small group of adventurers, just following the pack.

We soon made our way safely around the bear and continued on along the river's edge. We had been making good time, so we stopped for a break. I flipped off my pack and sat down immediately on a large rock beside the water.

It felt good to have the load off my back. My ribs were feeling better. The others joined me as we sat around on the flat slab of granite, just taking in the beauty of where we were.

As Bull sat, he began to tell a story about a Miwok Indian boy and his mountain lion spirit animal. It was a story his scoutmaster had told during his younger days. The lion had been summoned to save the boy and his village. It was said the lion would appear when the boy spread his hands in the water of a stream and called out the lion's name, "Minhafa."

Everyone enjoyed the story and the rest. It was a needed break. On a lark, I knelt by the water, slowly spreading my hands out in a calming motion as I called out Minhafa's name. It brought a smile from Bull, chuckles from Kyle and head shakes and eyerolls from the girls. With my attempt at humor mostly successful, we foisted our packs and got back on the trail.

As we continued our hike along the river, Bull turned back toward us to speak and suddenly put his arms out, stopping our progress. He pointed downstream from where we had come. We turned to look, and just down the river about seventy-five yards, up on a large rock overlooking where we had been, stood a large mountain lion.

Chill bumps rose on my arms from the coincidence of the lion and Bull's story. I had a death grip on my bat even though the big cat was far away. I grew nervous thinking I would only have one swing at protecting myself. I had a sudden unnerving thought that my defensive weapon of choice might be less than useful.

As quickly as Bull had stopped us, the mountain lion glanced our way for a moment and then casually turned and strode off into the woods in the other direction. We stood for five minutes looking back for any sign of its return. In another rush of thought, I came to the realization my seemingly secure place in the back of the group was not so secure. In a cowardly move, I stepped up and began talking to Allie to help secure my spot in the middle. It was not a moment I was proud of, but at the time it was who I was, always thinking of myself first.

With the immediate threat diminished, we hiked for another hour before stopping to find a spot to set up a night's camp. When we came to a shallow area of the river, we decided it was as good a place as any to cross. The footing was dicey and the water was frigid, but we managed our way to the other side without incident.

Since evening was approaching and we were ready for a rest, we selected the site by the river for a camp. We found a flat area where we could tie lines between several trees to string up our tarps. Shortly after unpacking, a campfire was lit. Wet clothes from the crossing were hung up to dry.

Bull pulled out a fly rod and was back at the water, attempting to stretch out the food we carried. The trout from base camp the night before had been delicious, and everyone was eager to have more.

As Bull fished, Allie and Susi began to scout the surrounding area for small game. Allie was a crack shot and used Susi's High Standard .22. The small caliber would allow the bulk of the animal to be left for cooking if she happened to make a kill. Although with a handgun it would be a daunting task.

Kyle and I had firewood duty and gathered more than was necessary to get us through the night. The temperatures during the day were reaching the upper sixties. At night they would drop to near freezing. The low humidity and our nylon sleeping bags would again make for a comfortable night's sleep.

Bull landed three large trout. Allie and Susi managed a pair of squirrels while gathering a sackful of gooseberries. Another fine meal was consumed that evening.

The skies grew dark quickly. It was a moonless and cloudless night. A few feet away from the fire, the Milky Way was clearly visible. Our high altitude and ultradark skies would have made any astronomer giddy with excitement.

We chatted around the fire for several hours before sliding into our sleeping bags. After the day's journey, all except for me were fast asleep. Being a light sleeper, I could not shake the sight of the bear and the mountain lion from my head. Every little bump in the night had me sitting up and looking about.

An hour after the others were fast asleep, the fatigue of the day finally took hold and I dozed off. It was just about midnight when my slumber was first disturbed. I awoke feeling something moving in my left palm. I felt around slowly for a flashlight with my free hand, fearing I would end up with a snakebite or scorpion sting.

When I turned on the light and shone it on my hand, I froze in terror. A big, brown, hairy spider was sitting square in my palm. It took me several seconds to return from the panic of terror to reality. I let out a high-pitched squeal and shook the monster from my hand. Again the terror set in as I looked back at my hand and saw the thousand baby spiders that were left behind, scurrying in every direction.

The others were now sitting up and reaching for their guns when I jumped up and ran over to the last few embers of the fire. I pushed my hand close to the heat in an attempt to drive the tiny nightmares away. My misguided attempt only made them scatter further and begin to move up my arm. For whatever reason, I was too overcome with fear to just brush them off with my other hand.

I next ran to the river and dove into the frigid mountain water to wash them from my arm. The bitter cold did not deter me from getting rid of the tiny horrors. I splashed around, letting out numerous high-pitched screams for several minutes, before I emerged from the water, soaking wet and shivering.

The others were all standing at the river's edge with guns and flashlights drawn and puzzled looks on their faces. When I told them of the spider, they all howled with laughter. When I added in the thousand babies, Bull doubled over on the ground and began to cry as he laughed.

Whenever Bull laughed, you could not help but want to join in, his laugh was infectious. So, I had a good laugh at my own expense while putting more wood on the fire. I desperately needed to warm my chilled body. It took another half hour before the camp was once again settled down and the adventurers were dozing off. By 2 a.m. my eyes were again too heavy to remain open. I drifted off into a blissful sleep.

I wasn't sure how long after it was when I was awakened by a loud crack and a bright flash. Through my fuzzy, sleepy eyes I could make out what looked like the last of a shooting star dropping over the horizon to what seemed like only a few miles away. Little did I know that sight to be a harbinger of things to come. What we knew about the universe, was about to change.

After looking around at the others, who somehow remained undisturbed, I sighed and pulled my sleeping bag tight up under my chin. I closed my eyes and soon returned to that blissful place beyond consciousness that we all call sleep.

Dawn came early. By the time I opened my eyes, Bull and Allie were already up and catching breakfast. Kyle came over and frizzled my hair with his hand while telling me it was time to get up. I rolled over to shield the early light from my eyes in an attempt to catch those last few zzz's.

After my roll, Kyle decided to have a little fun by telling me not to move because there was a spider on my sleeping bag. I knew it to not be true, but the thought of the night before had me wide awake. I got out of my bag and moved over to warm myself by the new morning campfire.

Susi had packed a small tin of ground coffee that was brewing over the fire. It was a surprise to me, and as an avid coffee drinker I was salivating at the thought of a nice cup o' joe. The coffee was black and harsh, heaven in a cup.

By the time Bull and Allie returned with our morning feast of a jackrabbit and two more squirrels, I was ready to get at the day. The catch was skinned and gutted by the river and then staked out over the fire. Small game was plentiful in the Yosemite back-country, and it had not been a particularly harsh winter, so we hoped to not be luring in other hungry beasts.

As we sat around the fire eating, I told the others of the bright flash from the night before. Kyle quipped that perhaps I was hallucinating after being mentally terrorized by the spider and its offspring. The more I talked about the event, the more it made me wonder.

The loud crack and the flash had awakened me, but all I had seen was the tail end of the streaking light. It struck me as funny that even as large and as close as it seemed to be, there was no noise or vibration from an impact. The others had passed it off as a shooting star, but for whatever reason, I could not agree.

### Chapter 3

### _______________________

**W** e broke camp soon after breakfast and began our day's hike to our first real landmark, Lake Eleanor. The nearby reservoir of Cherry Lake had just been dammed a year earlier, so we left it off the trails we had chosen. Lake Eleanor was 26,000 acres in size and provided both water and power to San Francisco. Since this was supposed to be a wilderness trip, we branched off early from Eleanor Creek to bypass the dam.

It was mid-afternoon when we reached the southern edge of the lake. We broke for lunch and a brief rest and then quickly got back on the trail. The scenery from the edge of the lake was stunning.

The pure blue sky reflected off the glassy, motionless water. You felt as though you could pick up a flat rock and skip it all the way to the other side, nearly a quarter of a mile away. The wildlife was plentiful along the lake, as we startled many jackrabbits and spotted many hawks. Several wild turkeys were seen scurrying in and out of the brush.

The woods were bountiful in 1957, and on our second encounter with a turkey, Allie bagged a ten-pounder, again making use of Susi's .22. The unlucky fowl was plucked, cleaned, and packed away for dinner later that evening.

We spotted a red fox, which Bull looked up in his Animals of Yosemite book. The book said the fox had likely been hunted to extinction and had not been seen since the 1920s, but there it was, quickly scampering out of sight before Susi could snap a picture. The official rediscovery of the Nevada red fox would have to be left for another day.

As the hike continued, we reached a sandy beach where Frog Creek would lead us up to Laurel Lake. Once at Laurel Lake, we would make camp for the evening. The terrain that day had not been difficult, but it had been a long hike, and we were all eager to sink our teeth into the turkey.

After a short break we again donned our packs and continued our trek. Our progress came to a sudden stop as Bull held out his hand. A dead rabbit lay butchered on a nearby rock. It had been neatly opened up with its innards removed.

I wasn't squeamish, but I had to look away. Dead animals meant something or someone was out there killing them. And from the looks of the scene, it wasn't for food. After several minutes of discussion and with nothing more to see, we got back on the trail. I again assumed my position in the middle.

When we reached Laurel Lake, Allie dressed the bird for the fire while Bull and Kyle had their go at fishing. We ate well that evening and sat around the campfire afterward, talking about the day's rewards. It had been a good day and I was no longer regretting having come along. As darkness once again fell and the fire began to die down, we each made our way into our sleeping bags under the tarps.

In a continued cowardly move, I had managed to position my bag between the two couples. If some animal was going to invade our campsite, I did not want to be the unfortunate person it attacked first. I was still unable to fall asleep as easily as the others and lay awake thinking about where we were and what we had seen that day. The dissected animal clung to my conscious thoughts.

It was then when I got an urge to answer nature's call. I would have to go to the edge of the woods by myself in order to drain my now-ready-to-burst bladder. I cursed myself for not having gone when everyone was up and the campfire was still going strong, but nature had a way of not cooperating when the time was most convenient. I slid out of my bag, picked up my bat, and walked into the edge of the dark, sinister wood nearby.

I leaned the bat against a tree and began to relieve myself. I was startled when I heard a rustling sound off to my left. I peered into the dark wood while attempting to hurry as fear began to get the better of me. In my state of nervousness, I could not seem to finish my pee as the darkness appeared to creep ever closer.

It was then when I had to halt my attempt to placate my urge. There in the forest were two deep-red, glowing eyes that were looking in my direction from about forty yards away. The red, glowing eyes then turned into brighter fine points and narrowed as if focusing on me directly. My mind raced back to the story Bull had told earlier about the strange lights and the hiker who had claimed to have been watched by a demon.

I reached for my bat and knocked it over. I then fumbled on the ground in the darkness trying to find it without taking my eyes off the threat. When I finally had my grip of the handle, I jumped to my feet and sprinted back into camp.

I quietly awakened Bull and the others and began to tell of what I had seen. Kyle immediately pointed out that my fly was open. His next action was to laugh and again tease me about my affair with the spider the night before. But I persisted in my story, so Bull and Kyle got their handguns and followed me to where I had seen the red, demon eyes.

We stood for ten minutes, looking and listening, but nothing moved or made a sound. When Kyle had seen enough, he turned with a huff and made his way back to the tarps. Bull stood with me for another few minutes, while I swore to him I had seen two red eyes. I described how I felt they had focused and stared directly at me.

Bull gave me the benefit of the doubt. He knew from my reaction I had indeed seen something. Sometimes an animal's eyes in the wood can reflect light and appear to glow, but that would only happen if a light was being shone in their direction. There were no lights around other than the dull embers of the fire. I had not used a flashlight. I had come to relieve myself only carrying my bat.

I felt bad for waking the others and then not having anything to see, but I was happy the eyes were gone. I told Bull we may as well go back and come out to look in the morning. He agreed and sent me toward the tarps, while he stayed to take a break of his own. I was almost back by the smoldering campfire when five loud shots rang out, striking fear into my heart.

The girls were instantly up with their guns at the ready. They and Kyle hustled over to where Bull was standing. As I watched I realized I was alone in the camp with only my bat. I made haste to join the others.

As I approached, Bull had one arm out with his hand facing back at us, telling us to be still. He then brought one finger up to his mouth to attain our silence. We all listened intently and heard nothing but the constant chirp of crickets.

Another five minutes of peering into the dark woods passed, before we moved back to the tarps. We sat up for several hours discussing what had happened. Bull had seen the red, demon eyes too. He said they had appeared to be moving slowly toward him, so he had drawn his .45 cal and fired off the five shots we had heard.

He thought one of those five rounds may have hit its target, as whatever it was had jerked quickly. It then let out a hiss and turned away. He could barely make out the sound of it sprinting off through the woods. We re-lit the fire and decided two of us would stay up and keep an eye out for the intruder. It was going to be a long night.

Bull and Allie would go first, while Kyle and I would take the early morning watch. I was worried it would be difficult for me to get to sleep, but the fatigue of the day soon took its toll. With my friends at the watch, I quickly dozed off into slumberland.

It was 3 a.m. when Bull awakened us for our monitoring duty. As we sat by the fire peering off into the woods, I again told Kyle of the strange light and noise I had seen the night before. I told him I had trouble with believing it to have been a shooting star, because it had appeared to slow slightly before dropping behind the ridge. And I had expected a vibration or at least some faint noise of an impact, but had not heard nor felt any.

By firelight, we looked through Bull's manual of Yosemite animals and found no reference to red, glowing eyes. Again I was to the point of fondly thinking about my boring insurance job. I thought about how good the warmth, comfort, and security of my own bed would feel. My level of enjoyment over taking the trip was turning out to be a roller-coaster of emotion. In my normal obsessive way, I began to believe I would never be going home... home to the peace and security of Atlanta.

When dawn finally came, the others were up and moving about the camp. Bull and I walked over for a quick look at the area where the eyes had been. Nothing of note was seen. We returned to eat.

Grits and leftover turkey were had for breakfast. We then began packing up for our next hike. Before we left, it was decided we would again search the woods.

For half an hour we walked, looking for any sign of whoever or whatever had been out there. Bull could find no trace of animal tracks, and we were just about to give up when Allie noticed a small spot of liquid on top of a boulder. She had found what looked like several drops of an oily substance.

On the ground just behind the boulder was a large bare area. It appeared as though something had been poured over it, dissolving all the vegetation, sticks, leaves, and other organics, leaving a bare circle of nothing but dirt and rock.

The circle would not have drawn our attention had it not been almost perfect. With nothing other than the anomaly to look at, we turned our attention back to the liquid. Bull smelled it and remarked it had an oily smell. He then touched it and rubbed it between two fingertips. He reasoned it was definitely a type of lubricant and it had not come from an animal.

There was someone else in the woods with us, and we were going to have to keep a close watch out for them. I hoped it was just some other nosy hikers, but the fact that one of them, or at least something they had, had been hit by a .45 cal round, had me edgy and wishing I had a gun of my own. We continued our search for several minutes and then made our way back to the packs.

The fire was soaked with water from the lake to make certain we would not start a disaster. You would not want to be trapped in the woodsy, dry back-country with a wildfire chasing you. With a little bad luck and the wind blowing in the wrong direction, you could easily be overtaken by flames or smoke. For hikers, a wildfire was an extremely dangerous event.

With the campsite clean, we donned our packs and proceeded on to the next leg of the journey. I again managed to be in the middle of the group, not wanting to be surprised by whoever or whatever had been spying on us the night before.

The day's hike would be to the northern edge of Hetch Hetchy Reservoir. We would have a stop at Tueeulala Falls, Wapama Falls, and finally Rancheria Falls. Bull had a trail map with topological info on it, and with our trusty compasses, it seemed rather easy to navigate our course.

We made our way back to the south, down the other side of Frog Creek. When we left the creek at a big bend, we continued on for a short distance before starting to make our way down to Hetch Hetchy. It was a fifteen-hundred-foot drop over the next several miles. The downward trek compared to our prior day's ascension helped to speed us along the way.

We arrived at Hetch Hetchy about a half mile up from the dam and proceeded eastward toward Tueeulala Falls. It was a high fall and made for impressive pictures during late spring and early summer. The creeks and streams that fed it were all at high levels from the spring snowmelts. It took us two hours to hike to the top of the falls; at close to nine hundred feet of incline.

We broke for lunch and a rest while we gazed over Hetch Hetchy Reservoir from our lofty perch. Again, the scenery was breathtaking. And as I had suspected might happen early, Susi had used her last roll of film. We rested for a half hour and then began our hike back to the trail below. The almost two-hour trek going up turned into a half hour hike on the way down.

It was just after lunch when my legs began to feel a burn from the hiking. I found myself happy that Wapama Falls was only a few hundred yards further on.

Wapama Falls was huge compared to Tueeulala, easily three to four times the volume. When we again reached the edge of Hetch Hetchy, we took a break and rested. With the wondrous scenery, the fear and the troubles of the night before seemed to have faded away. I hoped it to be a permanent situation.

From Wapama we proceeded on along the shoreline of Hetch Hetchy. We had a fantastic view of Kalona Rock, which jutted upward from the opposite shoreline. Kalona was a massive piece of granite that rose almost a thousand feet up. It seemed to loom above you, as if offering protection from the wilds as you walked. Beyond Kalona, the elevation continued to increase as we hiked toward Rancheria Falls.

There were several sets of falls along Rancheria Creek, and our planned path would take us past them all. As we continued, the terrain had turned rocky and once again uphill, so our forward progress slowed. I was getting fatigued, and I was certain the others were starting to hear it in my increased grumpiness and short complaints. The intent of my moans and grumbles was easily known. When we arrived at the second set of falls, we decided it was as good a place as any to set up camp.

I was exhausted, but somehow my sister seemed as chipper as ever. Since her college days, she had worked on her fitness through walking and running. It was something both she and Kyle enjoyed doing together. For Bull and Allie it was their natural way of life.

I, on the other hand, usually spent my spare time cozied up to the bar trying to entertain clients. My few hikes before coming on the trip had apparently not been enough. I slid out of my pack, removed my boots and socks, and walked over into the icy-cool water of the creek.

The cold bit into my feet and I immediately hopped back out, but after another try, I began to feel relief. As I stood in the water, I turned to see the girls setting up the tarps while Bull and Kyle headed out to hunt dinner.

Even though Yosemite was a national forest, back in the 1950s, the rangers did not seem to mind if wilderness hikers in the back-country took small game for food. Since there were not a lot of visitors, there was no real danger of over-hunting. Commercial hunting, was absolutely banned. If you were caught, it came with hefty fines and possible jail time.

Minutes later, Bruce and Kyle returned triumphant. This night we once again had squirrel, and we chopped up three of the six potatoes I was carrying in my pack. I was glad to be rid of the extra pounds I had been carrying, and the squirrel stew hit the spot.

After eating, the girls had asked us politely to go off into the woods because they wanted to bathe in the falls. We were all in need of a hygienic overhaul at that point, so we obliged and walked downstream. We were soon out of sight. With an hour of daylight remaining, they washed, hung their clothes, and got into the spare sets they had in their packs. We returned after twenty minutes and then sent them downstream so we could do the same.

The water was frigid, but it felt good to once again be clean. We had been on the trail for three solid days. It had brought an odor that would be completely unacceptable when back in the business circles of Atlanta. I found it funny how back then, body odor did not seem to bother men quite as much. It was considered part of one's masculinity. Deodorants use by men was only beginning to be in widespread use.

We had planned on staying around the area a little late in the morning to allow for extra rest, which would be followed with a shorter day of hiking. With the coming elevations, the terrain was only going to get tougher. I was looking forward to the extra rest.

With the sun was setting, we still had a bit of daylight left. Bull and Allie decided they would take a walk up the creek as a sort of evening stroll. I got nervous that Kyle and Susi were going to want to do the same, leaving me behind and making me the old fifth wheel, sitting at the camp alone, waiting to be devoured by a large animal with glowing, red eyes. But the two of them made no effort to take a walk of their own, so I continued to hide my cowardly thoughts.

Bull and Allie came back after twenty minutes. He began telling us about a butchered animal just up the creek about a quarter mile. It was another jackrabbit someone had filleted open and then chopped up as if poking around inside. He thought it curious and was now of the opinion it probably was poachers, criminals, whom he had the pleasure of shooting at the night before.

Bull was an avid hunter, and he detested sport hunting where no effort was made to make use of the animal. To him, it just seemed like the senseless killing of a living creature. Why not just shoot a stump or a rock, he had often said. Someone had done a very precise carving job on the jackrabbit and had not kept the fur or the meat. What bothered him most was the fact the rabbit was still fresh. It had been there for less than a day, which meant whoever had done it was likely still in the area.

As we settled around the evening's fire, the topic of the red, demon eyes again came up. Bull thought it was probably poachers, or worst case, it could have been someone looking to rob us. The outfitter had told Bull he had never run into trouble himself, but he had heard the occasional story of a hiker or two in the Sierra Nevadas who were robbed at gunpoint. I was not fond of this new revelation.

We talked about how we might defend the camp if someone chose to confront us, and about how we would each take a two-hour turn during the night to keep watch. Bull was irritated as he thought and talked about how this could ruin his adventure-package plans. Irritating Bull was hard to do, as I had tried many times over the years to get him riled up. He would usually break down and laugh at my attempts. He was a good guy and great friend.

As we settled in to sleep, I decided to take the last watch at 4 a.m. I was usually up at five in the morning at home so I could get that first cup of coffee. I had planned to get Susi's coffee tin to make a cup to start my day off right. I was also keeping Susi's .22 handy in case there was trouble. I was a terrible shot, and a .22 would not do much to stop a large animal or even a man, but I reasoned a single shot would give off a sufficient warning.

We gathered enough wood to keep a decent fire going through the night and then bedded down with Susi staying up first. The day's hike had me worn out, and that night I was the first to nod off into nowhere-land. The night's sleep was blissful.

### Chapter 4

### _______________________

**M** y time at sentry duty came. I was awakened by Bull for the final watch of the night. I got up, threw a few extra pieces of wood on the fire, and began to make my coffee. First light started to show about 6 a.m. The night had passed without issue.

Fifteen minutes later the others began to rise. We ate, packed, cleaned up the campsite, and decided to get an early start on the next leg of our adventure. We were heading all the way up Rancheria Creek to Tilden Canyon Creek, where we would camp for the night.

The first several miles of the hike were at a decent incline. We would be steadily climbing up 2,000 feet of elevation. The thought of going uphill and being at higher altitudes had me preparing myself for a tough day.

Ten minutes into the hike, we came upon the rabbit that had been butchered on the rock. Bull pointed over to it as we passed. I had to stop to take a look. I then asked Bull what the other animal was, and he stopped and turned toward me with a look of concern. There, on a lower rock, was something else... or at least the remains of it.

He and Allie walked over to inspect the carcass, determining it was a doe, probably only a month or so old. Again, it had been filleted open. I wondered if it had been dissected for study. We could not fathom what other possible use someone would have for doing such. All the parts of the animal remained there, neatly positioned about.

Bull looked it over carefully while Allie watched over his shoulder. Their inspection determined it had only been dead a few hours. Whoever had done this had once again been near our campsite. Leaning my bat against a rock I slowly raised my hands in the air and pulled them behind my head. I wondered if the red-eyed demon was following us. I became nervous with my eyes darting around, looking for any sign of the beast in our surroundings.

We took several minutes to evaluate the situation. We could turn south and head for Tioga Pass Road, we could head back to Hetch Hetchy and head for the dam, or we could continue onward. After a short discussion, we came to the conclusion that although this was odd, we had yet to be in any real danger from whoever was out there. As long as it stayed that way, we would continue the hike.

Our current heading was taking us further from civilization. We were well armed, and with Bull and Allie being extreme outdoorsmen, we felt confident enough to continue. Again, we had to think about the business aspect of the adventure. If completed with no issues other than what we had so far been confronted with, the Yosemite Sportsman Adventure Package would still be a go.

We hoisted our packs and began our slow climb up Rancheria Creek. I tried my best to stay in the middle of the group. The further from civilization we got, the more rugged it became. We were constantly having to climb up and over large boulders or find a way around. The scenery was still spectacular and the temperature and weather had been perfect, but this part of the hike was becoming a continuous workout for my short legs.

An hour and a half into our day's hike, we stopped for a break. Just as we did so, I turned to slip off my pack and saw a rock tumble down a ridge a hundred yards behind us. I wanted to say I had seen something move on the ridge where the rock had come from, but I wasn't certain. And with the fatigue I was already feeling and the jittery start to our hike, I thought my mind might be playing tricks on me.

I called Bull over and pointed to where I had seen the rock tumble. He pulled a small pair of binoculars from his pack and looked intently for several minutes. I told him I was unsure of actually seeing anything, and he gave me the old better-safe-than-sorry line.

When we started back, curiosity was getting the best of me, so when we donned our packs, I took up position in the back. Every chance I had, I would turn my head to look behind us, which only worked to wear me out faster. By the time we broke for lunch, I was exhausted. I once again slipped off the pack, found a big, flat rock in the shade, and lay down on my back.

Our hike that morning had been a constant uphill climb. Susi was in the same condition as I was and was beginning to grumble to Kyle. The joy of the journey for the common man was starting to fade as utter exhaustion set in. I glanced at the others and scowled as Bull and Allie were chipper, showing no real signs of fatigue.

After a quick lunch and a good rest, Bull was once again ready to hit the trail. Susi and I both lobbied for an additional half hour of rest. Our argument was that we had made enough progress on the day's hike with the early start to buy ourselves a short reprieve. I could not have been happier at the time, but as it turned out, the longer rest only made us stiff by the time our extended break was over.

I slid on my pack, glanced back down the trail, and once again started moving forward. The trail continued upwards, around and over boulders and fallen trees. In reality there was no trail to speak of. It was just the path through the wilderness that we had chosen.

After a relatively steep section of trail, talk once again surfaced about a rest break. We were just coming into flatter terrain, and I still had the suspicious feeling we were being followed. So, I ducked behind a large rock and stayed crouched as the others proceeded. I figured with the easy terrain I would be able to catch back up to the others if they got too far ahead.

I waited a full five minutes behind the rock and then slowly peered around the sides back down the trail. If there was someone following us, I was certain I would catch a glimpse of movement. After several minutes of spying, I came to the realization that I was all alone. The others had moved well out of sight.

It was not a good feeling to be alone in the wilderness where there are known to be bears, mountain lions, and possibly hostile people roaming around, especially given the fact my only defense was a hickory bat. I slipped on my pack and made my best time to get myself caught back up to the others.

Several minutes into my hurried pace, I saw Bull coming my way at an equally fast jog. As I reached him, he turned and we made our way back to the others. As we walked, I told him of my spying game and that if anyone was back there, they were doing an excellent job of hiding themselves.

When we reached the others, a half hour was taken for rest. My first course of business was to get out of my boots. I wanted to get my tired, hot feet into some cool mountain water. As always, the initial feeling was of bitter cold. After the initial shock the temperature was soothing.

I dried my feet, rinsed out my socks, and made my way back over to my pack. I hung them on my pack before putting on a spare pair. If anything, the rest had brightened my spirits and taken my mind off my tired legs... and any potential followers that had been trailing us.

Soon our rest was over and we got back on the trail. We still had an hour's hike to our next campsite. I took note that my sister and Kyle had been having a quiet discussion between themselves. Every once in a while I would catch a glimpse of an angry face.

Susi had been with Kyle for more than three years, and this was the first time I had ever noticed any discord between them. Given my lack of judgment when it came to relationships, I logged it as nothing unusual. It wasn't long before the discussion had reached an impasse. It abruptly came to a less-than-happy end with both parties going quiet.

As we walked, Allie had taken note of several caves that inhabited a nearby ridge. She remarked they were the right size for bear, to which I insisted we continue our hike. Bull was in agreement. Kyle and Susi, in their less that happy moods, had nothing to say.

It was approaching 4 p.m. when we reached Tilden Canyon Creek. We found another good spot for crossing and made our way up through the canyon. The terrain was tight by the creek, forcing us to climb up and over many boulders along the way. It was only a short distance to a flattened area that supposedly held a small shallow pond.

As we came out of the tight canyon the terrain opened into a beautiful meadow that was full of summer wildflowers. It would be our spot for the evening. After slipping off my pack I was all too happy to call it home. For the next half hour, I performed my now-daily duty of gathering firewood and setting up the tarps.

As I walked and stooped, picking up dead wood, it occurred to me we really weren't all that far from the bear cave, so I hustled up a load of sticks and hurried my way back to center camp. When I arrived with my bundle, Bull and Kyle had just left to go back down the creek for a shot at a trout or two. The girls had left across the meadow to hunt for small game.

I dreaded being alone in bear country, so I decided I needed to keep myself busy. My first job was to set up a fire pit. I had watched Bull enough times to know how to stage a fire with the kindling and rolled-up dry grass on the bottom. To my satisfaction, after using a single match, the fire came to life with a fervor.

The sun was just above the canyon walls, leaving several hours of daylight still in the day. My next task was to push some larger rocks around the fire for our front-row seating. Even though tired, I needed the workout as again it kept my mind off thoughts of ravenous animals.

I next moved over to our tarp area and began to build a small rock wall surrounding it. I had made it to about eighteen inches high when Allie and Susi returned with a rabbit. I felt a small twinge of guilt over the death of the furry, fuzzy bunny, but that guilt quickly faded when the image of it slow roasting over our fire popped into my head. I could picture it being taken off the spit and handed to me as I sat by the roaring flame. My stomach began to growl.

As the sun dipped behind the canyon rim, the temperature began to fall. We had climbed to almost 8,000 feet above sea level and the thin, dry air cooled quickly. Allie skinned the rabbit by the creek and was finishing just as Bull and Kyle returned, having six good-sized trout on a line. Like the rabbit, they were cleaned and brought to the fire.

We pulled the last of the potatoes from my pack and made a pot of rabbit-trout stew that again would have brought raves back home in any elitist restaurant. Allie had several small bags of spice she had packed that seasoned the stew perfectly. After chowing down, I sat back against a rock to relax.

The dinner conversation was strained and quickly died down. I began to notice the argument from earlier was still ongoing between Kyle and Susi. I had no clue what it was about and had no desire get in the middle of someone else's squabble.

But this was my sister and my soon-to-be brother-in-law, and I really liked them both, so I opened my big mouth and asked what the issue was, which only served to begin a new argument. This time they did not have the privacy they had while on the trail. Again, being without tact when it came to relationships, I laughed and asked for the juicy details.

My question brought dagger eyes from my sister. Kyle rose and walked over to the creek. Susi followed after him where they could have their discussion in private. Dusk was approaching, and from the looks of it, the argument was not going to be resolved anytime soon. Bull gave me an angered look, telling me I had poked my nose where it hadn't belonged.

After getting a bit too loud, the argument ended all at once as Susi turned and made her way back over to the tarps. Kyle followed a moment later, grabbing his sleeping bag, and for some reason picking up my bat. He made his way back over to the creek and then across it.

Bull and Allie moved away from the fire with solemn looks on their faces, going about their own quiet conversation as they stood by the pond. I was left alone. With no conversation to be had, I picked up a stick and began to poke at the fire.

Kyle had been gone for a half hour, and the darkness was beginning to set in. Bull made his way across the creek and up toward where he had seen Kyle walking. After not being able to convince him to return, Bull made his way back. Kyle had taken refuge on a ridge and had said their argument was very personal. He would need an evening alone to cool down. Bull had carried an extra blanket roll with him and left it with Kyle on the ridge.

From the ridge, the glow of the fire could be seen, making Bull less concerned for his safety. When Bull returned, he sat down at the fire and just looked at me. I told him I knew I had screwed up, opening my fat mouth. I added that it was my patented and trademarked way of dealing with relationships, always mucking things up.

I just didn't seem to have common sense when it came to dealing with personal subjects. It was like a part of my brain was missing. I had often wondered if it was partly to blame for the dissolution of my marriage, but I could not for the life of me figure out why.

Bull didn't laugh at my pun, but instead just turned and stared at the fire, poking at it with a stick. Allie had been offering Susi her sympathy and some quiet personal conversation. As the fire died down, Bull and I made our way over to the tarps to turn in.

I first apologized to my sister, who was not in the mood to hear it or to even look at me. I had made my bed, and it was now time to lie in it. I was tired from the day's hike, and sleep came fast that evening.

Around 2 a.m., I was awakened by what I thought sounded like a bear's roar. I woke Bull and mentioned it, and we both sat up silently listening for any more commotion. It was pitch black, and the night air had grown cold. The silence was deafening except for the sounds of the millions of crickets that inhabited the meadow. We sat up for five minutes and listened before Bull gave me a dirty look and laid back down.

What we didn't know was that Kyle had gotten a nighttime visit from the bear. As he lay mostly awake, no doubt running the day's arguments with Susi over and over in his head, the bear had managed to come up and corner him on the ledge. It was dark and difficult to see as he tried to hold his ground with only my bat available to defend himself.

Several feeble swings told him it was not going to get the job done, so he slid down over the face of the ledge to a smaller ledge below. Poking the bat helplessly up at the bear was all he could do in defense as the beast inched ever closer. The bear had leaned over the ledge and swiped at him with a big, nastily clawed fore-paw. The bat was knocked from his hand, falling to the creek below.

As Kyle squatted uncomfortably down on the small ledge, just out of reach, he thought he might just have a chance. The bear then backed up, disappearing over the top of the ledge. Seconds later it let out a bloodcurdling roar. I didn't know at the time, but it was the roar that had awakened me.

The bear had managed the single roar before going silent as something cut deeply into its torso. Kyle was splattered with the bear's blood, but he couldn't see what was happening just above him. Whatever it was had killed the animal and was now hacking away at it.

Bits and pieces of the now-dead beast were falling over the ledge onto Kyle, who was stooped silently below. The rocks were now becoming slick with the bear's blood. Several minutes later, the carcass was pushed over the edge. In its prime, earlier that evening, the bear had weighed in at six hundred pounds.

For Kyle, the slippery, bloody rock and the heavy carcass were too much. He was knocked from his perch. It was a ninety-foot drop down into a rocky Rancheria Creek below.

### Chapter 5

### _______________________

**W** e awoke the next morning at first light. I immediately made my way out of camp to try to get to Kyle to apologize. My sister was not talking to me, so I thought I would try the other side. Bull had described to me exactly where Kyle could be found. I carried Kyle's gun with me with the hope of trading it out for my bat.

When I arrived at the ledge, my jaw dropped. I began to shake as a panic set in. There were bear tracks, and there was blood everywhere. Kyle's sleeping bag had been ripped to shreds, and there was no sign of Kyle. I turned and fired off three rounds into the air.

Bull made his way up at a full run in under three minutes. When he arrived, he immediately stopped and stared at the blood-soaked ground. As the reality of the scene took hold, he walked slowly over to the edge and looked down into the rushing creek below. He turned and looked back at the bear tracks. He remarked that the tracks came in, but did not leave. And there was no sign of Kyle. We made our way back down the trail and then down Tilden Creek to where it joined Rancheria.

As we started our run up Rancheria toward under the ledge where Kyle had been the night before, I stopped Bull. I pointed to an object sticking up from the rushing water. It was stuck in a heavy current along with several tree limbs, but it was easy to see it was my bat. We began looking along the creek for any sign of a body. There was none to be found.

I wanted to recover the bat, but Bull pressed on; finding Kyle was much more important. As we continued, I could not help but look back at my bat caught in the swirling torrent. The bat was my security, and I wished I had it back in my hand. Even with Kyle's gun, I still somehow felt vulnerable.

It took another three minutes for us to arrive below the ledge. The surrounding rocks had blood spatterings and bits of animal gut on them, but Bull could not immediately tell if they were from Kyle or the bear. The creek was deep at that point, but not deep enough to break a ninety-foot fall.

There was no other evidence of either body on the side of the creek below the ledge. We made our way across with Bull putting out his twisted hand with the palm facing backward, giving that familiar gesture for me to stop.

On the southeast side of the creek, there were not one but two sets of bootprints leading away, heading up the creek. And there was evidence of a bloody body having been dragged along with them. I wondered who had done this... and why? The questions were popping into my mind faster than I could answer them. I could see the gears whirring in Bull's head as he too surveyed the situation.

We turned immediately to make our way back to camp to get the girls. Bull would fill them in on what may or may not have happened. As we hurriedly climbed our way back up Tilden Canyon, all I could think about was how my sister was going to hate me for the rest of our lives. After all, it had been my prodding that had elevated whatever spat they were having to the level that drove Kyle from Susi.

The girls met us as we made our way into the camp. Bull told them of what we had seen and Susi immediately broke down. I wanted to comfort her, but I just didn't know how. My total lack of being able to deal with relationships continued to rear its ugly head.

Allie stepped in, and Bull signaled for me to help start packing up the camp. It took half an hour to break camp and to calm Susi enough to get her pack on her shoulders. Bull hoisted his and Kyle's and we began our walk. We stopped at the edge of the creek where the two sets of tracks had been found and Bull let Allie assess the site for herself.

He reasoned that whoever they were, they had been there right about daybreak, which would put them a good two hours ahead of us. Allie felt we should be able to catch up since we were not dragging anything along with us.

We made haste up the trail along Rancheria Creek, then in search of one of our own. It was hard terrain, but we had reason to travel it as quickly as we could. We had not gone far when we came across evidence of blood and guts on a rock beside the creek. After that point, the evidence of anything being dragged disappeared; there were only the two sets of bootprints moving away.

I could not imagine how frustrating it would be for us to slip farther behind and then to lose track of whoever it was that had our friend. As my brain slowly churned through the scenarios that may have happened, I couldn't help but get the feeling this was not going to end well.

Were the two tracks from whomever we had spotted in the woods a few nights before? Were they armed? Were they a couple of crazies, and did they wish us harm? These thoughts at least kept my mind busy and off the fact the terrain was quickly sapping my energy. I would not be able to keep this pace up for long, and I did not want to be the one that held the others back.

During our hike, Susi remained completely silent. I could not tell what she might be thinking, as she was largely expressionless and just following the others blindly. I could only imagine the level of guilt she had been feeling, having had her last conversation with Kyle as an argument. I guessed I would have been silent too.

As we came upon a big bend in the creek, Bull stretched out his hand. As we stopped I could see him sniffing the air. Immediately I could smell that familiar essence of a campfire. We were close to whoever it was we had been following. I pulled Kyle's pistol and fumbled with the safety. I was not going into this without being ready to pull the trigger at whoever or whatever might lie ahead.

We continued on, only at a slower and more careful pace. Bull stopped us, climbing up a hillside edge so he could get a good view from on top of a large boulder. As I waited down by the creek, I was a nervous wreck.

I turned to look back to where we had come from, and for an instant I was certain I saw someone move in the trees a hundred yards back. I was standing on a large rock by the creek's edge at the time. When I turned back to warn the others, I lost my footing and began to slide.

I fell from the rock and into the rushing creek below. Allie looked back just as I went over the edge and came running to give me a hand. I had been injury-free since we left base camp, but my fun time was over. I hit the rushing water on my back with the full pack on.

I was immediately sucked under and then spewed out of a torrent between two large rocks. I next tumbled-over several times before coming to a calmer section of the creek. Allie had shed her pack and jumped in about waist deep in the water to rescue me. I was dragged over to the side and then pulled out onto a large, flat rock.

Susi had stayed up on the trail and just watched with a stoic look on her face. She only had her mind on Kyle, and any of my little sideshows were not going to break her from her funk. During my tumbling, I managed to crack my right wrist hard on a rock on the bottom of the creek. I had also managed to lose Kyle's pistol.

I thought it just as well, as I would have been lucky to hit anything with it even if it had been right in front of me. I figured it would probably work to keep me from shooting myself. Once again I longed for my bat.

My wrist began to swell, and I could tell from the numb feeling I had broken a bone. Bull was still up on the boulder surveying the area in front and had kept an eye on us during the fiasco. Since Allie had been right on top of it, he did not bother to come down to help. He knew how capable she was in dealing with the situation and if anything, he would just be getting in her way.

The bone in the palm of my hand going from my wrist to my little finger was broken. As Allie looked it over, she motioned for me to look back down at the creek. When I did, she pulled on my hand, setting the bone back in place.

The pain was intense, but it was over quickly. I was glad she had done it without me being prepared, as I would likely have once again screamed aloud. As Allie prepared a splint, I noticed Bull coming down from his perch. He said the area in front of us indeed looked like a campsite, but there was no one there.

The fire was just a few smoldering embers. I then remembered why I had fallen in the creek to start with, and this time I let Bull know I was certain I had seen something. Either someone else was following us or the other two had somehow doubled back. Allie quickly finished my splint, and a new plan was devised.

Allie and Susi would head forward to the campsite and inspect it further, while Bull and I would head downstream to investigate whoever was following us. I thought it was a really bad idea to be splitting up, but as the gimp of the group I did not have much of a say.

When we arrived at the area where I thought I had seen someone, Bull began his investigation. He had tracked animals for years as an outdoorsman, so I had no doubt if someone had been there, he would find evidence of it. We searched for half an hour and found nothing more than a small, broken twig with a leaf on the end. Bull speculated that whoever it was knew how to move about without disturbing the soil. He also told me that someone had definitely been there, because live branches don't break by themselves.

Bull pulled out his small binoculars and began scanning the trail down along the creek. Had anyone been at the spot I identified, they would have had to have gone back that way. This section of the creek was guarded by steep inclines on either side. He reasoned only a mountain goat would have had a shot at scaling the walls in the best of places.

I did not like the feeling of now being cut off from the way we had originally come. My thoughts were that we needed to find Kyle and to make our way back to civilization as fast as possible. If we could not find him soon, it would be better to let the authorities come up and deal with it themselves. I thought this was especially true for me, given my now somewhat crippled condition.

We turned back toward the girls and made our way to the abandoned camp. When we arrived, Bull was uneasy as the girls had continued forward. Allie had scratched a note in the dirt saying it looked like we were only about twenty minutes behind whoever it was. She was going after them.

Bull turned and followed at a fast pace. I knew I was going to have trouble keeping up, but I was not in the mental or physical condition to be left behind. Nor did I want to be the one who kept us all apart. I pressed on as best I could.

We had come to an open meadow with a heavily forested area to the right. Allie and Susi were standing about halfway through the meadow with their hands raised. Bull put out his hand in the stop gesture, and we quietly moved over behind a large rock.

Slowly we made our way, under cover, up into the tree line. Just as we stepped into the trees, we saw two men emerging from the stand, walking toward Allie and Susi with their rifles raised. Bull took off like an elk and moved quickly and silently around to get a good position behind the men. I knew he was fast if he wanted to be, but I was shocked by how fast he had disappeared into the woods.

### Chapter 6

### _______________________

**M** oments later he came out behind the two men with his .45 ready. He demanded they drop their weapons and drop to their knees. They complied. Allie stepped over and picked up their rifles. Each man had an additional sidearm strapped to their hips. Those were collected as well.

Bull began the questioning. The two men claimed to be hunters, which made them poachers since we were in a national park. I had stayed in the woods during the encounter and had come across their packs. With my good hand I dragged the two packs out into the open where the others were standing. One of the packs had a large bear fur rolled up and strapped to the top of it.

Their names were Craig and Scott, and they claimed to know nothing of our friend Kyle. They also claimed to have not been following us a few nights before. They only moved up and down this end of Rancheria Creek looking for bear and fox for the hides.

Craig made note of the bear pelt they had collected that very morning. He thought it strange the bear had fallen over the ledge down to the creek bed below, and that it had been carved up. But the animal looked to have been abandoned, so it was taken. They had not seen Kyle, nor had they seen any evidence that he had fallen over with the bear.

Bull was now confused, needing time to think. He turned further interrogation over to Allie. She would be fair, but she would also not have any issue with using advanced methods to get information out of the two. She immediately began the threats, and and it was evident the two could tell how serious she was.

We talked for a good twenty minutes, with the men telling their story of the past several days. Then one of them mentioned the mutilated animals. Bull immediately took over the questioning once again and then listened as the two talked about the number of carcasses they had come across that looked like they had been dissected. They were of the opinion that whoever had been doing that had been wasting a lot of good meat and did not know a thing about acquiring and preserving furs, as most of them had been left unusable.

When the two had come across the bear carcass early that morning, they had taken what was left of the fur and the good meat and sent the rest down the creek. They again reiterated the fact they had not seen our friend or anyone else.

In an attempt to appease his captors, Craig volunteered to help look for our friend. Bull did not trust the men, but felt it would be good to have the two of them as extra eyes. They knew the area well.

Allie hung one of the rifles on my pack and the other on her own. The two poachers donned their own packs, and we made our way back toward where Kyle had last been seen. When we arrived back at the creek, Allie took us to where I had fallen in. Within a few minutes she had retrieved Kyle's 9mm from the rushing water.

We then continued on to just below the ledge and began our investigation from the beginning. This time we had the two men who had been there first, telling us exactly what they had found and exactly where they had found it.

Since they claimed to have not seen any sign of Kyle, it was decided to once again look further down the creek. It was possible the rushing water had washed his body downstream. We took our time scouring every last inch along the way for any signs our friend had emerged from the water, but there were none.

When we came upon my bat, still protruding from the branches stuck between two rocks, Bull had Scott wade in and retrieve it. Upon inspection, it was easy to see there were four deep scratches running half the length of the large part of the bat. Everyone agreed there had indeed been a fight with the bear.

Bull began to believe the men's story, even though it did not explain Kyle's disappearance. As we stood around the creek, the others discussed what we might do next. We turned back up the creek and soon reached the area where I thought I had seen someone moving. Bull, Craig, and Scott walked over to look for any sign anyone had indeed been there.

We had seen no evidence earlier, other than the broken twig, but the two men were highly experienced trackers. Only two minutes into their search, Scott came across something odd. There was a small, almost undetectable smudge on a flat stone.

Bull looked closely and then determined the same mark could be seen on three other nearby stones. It was not an animal track that any of them had seen before, but someone or something had definitely been there.

The tracks, if that was what they were, went almost straight up a steep incline. Whatever it was, Bull reasoned, it had to have had the balance and skill of a mountain goat to maneuver. Allie followed the tracks the other way back down to the creek.

We next made our way up to below the ledge to recheck the area where Kyle would have fallen. The same little smudges were found around where the poachers had said they had first come upon the bear. Bull turned to Craig and Scott, giving them back their weapons.

They were told to go on their way, as he had no beef with them other than poaching on national park land. He told them he would turn their names over to the park rangers when he got the chance, so they had better move their hunting to the proper areas. The two men assured him they would and made their way back toward where they had first been encountered. I was glad to be rid of them.

With the men away, Bull and Allie did their best to determine which direction the tracks were going in and which way they had come from. The smudges were triangular in shape, with a point heading in the direction of their travel.

After this discovery, we made our way back up Tilden Creek and up onto the ledge to look for signs of the tracks there. Once we knew what to look for, they were not hard to find. There had been a struggle and the bear had lost. What we were unsure of was what had happened to Kyle during the bear's demise. Bull suggested he might have gone over the edge onto the small ledge and then might have either fallen or been pushed or knocked off. He was exactly right, but at the time we were still just guessing.

Allie picked up the tracks heading down from the ledge. They moved over to a set of rocks beside where we had camped the night before. Whoever or whatever this was had been watching us as we slept.

Chill bumps rose on my arms and the back of my neck when I thought about being stalked. This was exactly what I feared about large animals. Now, here was something that had been following us that was obviously much tougher and stronger than a six-hundred-pound bear.

Again I longed for the safety and security of my dull, boring job back in Atlanta. We continued on with our tracking, going back down the creek and across and up onto the steep hillside where I had last seen something. It was a slow, tiring twenty-minute climb to the top, but we were again able to pick up the trail of triangular smudges.

After an hour of walking the ridge, I was worn out and asked for a break. We were all getting hungry, as it was now almost noon, and we had yet to eat anything after the morning's events. We took a twenty-minute rest before Bull insisted on continuing. The tracks crossed back down the ridge to along the creek at the exact point where I thought I had seen rocks falling the day before.

We looked closely, and there was evidence of a second set of tracks moving up the ridge at the same point. It was decided that whatever it was, it had been following us since at least that point in time. It did not take long before we had pieced together that the red, glowing, demon eyes near Laurel Lake had probably been whatever this was. Again, the chills ran down my spine.

I knew finding Kyle was our most important task, but with the current set of events and the way my brain worked, I was once again on the verge of a panic-attack. I swore, if I could only make it home, I would never leave the city again.

Maybe back in Atlanta I would get robbed and murdered in an alleyway, but at least I would know why it was happening and by whom. I was not scared of humans, as they could usually be reasoned with. Other than relationships, I was good at convincing others to accept what I wanted. That salesmanship however, would not work on wild animals... or whatever this was.

We made our way back down Rancheria Creek to where we had camped the previous night. Bull and Allie decided it was a place we could defend. We once again made camp while there was still a small amount of daylight.

I was exhausted, and I knew Susi was hurting too. She however, would not show her pain and had not talked since early that morning. I tried to ask her if she was OK, but all I got back was an empty stare. She was off in her own world, no doubt torturing herself about her last conversation with Kyle.

I knew there was nothing I could do or say to make it better. So I decided I might as well leave any attempts at comforting her up to Allie. Allie understood her.

Bull went looking for small game for our dinner. I was given the task of catching a fish or two. I almost jumped out of my hiking boots when I heard several shots about ten minutes later. Bull returned right after with two rabbits. I on the other hand, had no fish.

We cooked up the rabbits and then discussed how we might defend our campsite for the night. We would have to take shifts again. This time there would only be three of us. Susi was not in the mental condition to be left on guard duty on her own.

I wanted the first shift, up until midnight, as it seemed to be just after that when the visitor was on the prowl. It was again a selfish, cowardly act, an act that seemed to be in my nature. I also hoped the others might be a bit restless and stay up through a good part of my shift. My hopes were soon fulfilled, as Bull was not able to sleep, even though he needed it as much as anyone.

Before darkness fell, I had gathered a large pile of wood. It was enough to keep a roaring fire going all night. Our fire would stay well lit at least through my time on guard, I was determined of that.

As the last light of day disappeared, the girls got into their sleeping bags while Bull and I sat by the fire discussing the day's events. I could hear Susi lightly sobbing as she and Allie talked quietly for a short time before they dozed off. It had been a difficult day for the group, a day that could not end soon enough.

### Chapter 7

### _______________________

**A** s we sat by the fire, Bull had a worried look on his face. It was a reaction I had never seen him have before. Since being a kid, he had been bigger and stronger than anyone else, always confident, always in control. He had not been threatened by anything other than the one bear encounter where Allie had saved him. That had happened quickly, so he didn't have time to dwell on what might happen and how defenseless he was at the time. And with Allie by his side he had always felt fearless in every situation that had come his way.

Allie was with us, but Bull did not have that invincible feeling anymore. He was having trouble with not knowing what we were up against and what to do. Those were the same thoughts that had been running through my mind for most of the trip, so I welcomed him to my terrifying little world. He was not happy to be there.

We speculated for several hours about what we were up against and came up with everything from some wild, unknown Yosemite monster to aliens like those that had supposedly crashed in Roswell, New Mexico ten years before. Until such time as we knew different, we would call them demons because of their red, glowing eyes.

The hours sitting on guard and awake at the campfire seemed to drag on forever. When my shift was finally up and before settling in, I decided to go relieve myself. I walked over to the closest large boulder and stepped to where I was still in the light but out of sight of the others. At this point in my life I didn't really care if the girls were sitting in front of me with a spotlight as I urinated, but in 1957 it was the modest thing to do.

As I stood there, letting loose a stream, I scanned the surrounding darkness for any signs of the demon. The night was once again extremely dark, with only the barest sliver of a moon showing. I had never wished for a full moon before, but I was wishing for one at that moment.

As I made my final tap, the demon eyes appeared directly in front of me. They were fifty yards away and up on a slight hill, staring in a fixated way. For a moment I was frozen in panic. What was I doing out there by myself? Why had I come on this infernal trip? Once my thoughts from the initial panic subsided, I turned and hurried back to Bull and the safety of the campfire.

Bull drew his .45 and walked over to the rock. I followed closely behind with my bat. I pointed to where I had seen the demon, but there was now nothing there. We stood, quietly looking into the darkness. Every few seconds I would look back at the girls to make sure they were OK.

We returned and woke them. We sat around the fire for several minutes discussing what we might do. There was a small outcropping of rocks by the creek that offered an open area of defense in front and the creek behind, with another open area on the other side.

We grabbed our packs and set up our mini fortress among the rocks. I went back to grab and move as much of our large pile of firewood as I could. We lifted several of the larger, currently burning tree limbs and brought them over to light another fire on top of a large rock beside us.

We set up a pile of wood to our left and started another small fire going there. This gave us visibility full circle around our rock fortress. Nothing was going to come out of the darkness and be upon us without first crossing into our firelight.

We sat quietly for hours, peering out of our fortress, looking for any sign of the demon. Susi had come back to life after coming to the conclusion it was not her that was responsible for Kyle missing. It was the demon. It was 3 a.m. when the red eyes once again appeared. This time it was Allie who spotted them.

For an hour they sat at a distance, just seeming to stare at us through the darkness. They stayed in the shadows where all we could see were those two piercing, red, demon eyes. We sat ready for an attack that never came. The eyes blinked once and then disappeared from sight for the rest of the night.

Only one night earlier, Bull would have brazenly walked over to where the demon was and cut loose with his .45. But Bull had spent much of the day making himself apprehensive. A growing fear was normal given the current circumstance. I had been shaking almost the entire night, and I knew it was not from the cool night air. If Bull was to be labeled as scared, then I would be labeled as terrified.

First light began to show and I was ever so thankful, as my large bundle of firewood was now down to the last few pieces. I was not about to go out looking for more with the demon on the prowl. The fires remained burning just long enough, until the first bit of sunshine began to show on the upper ridges.

What was this thing that was following us, and what had it done with Kyle? Those questions looped endlessly through my mind. Were we going to make it back to civilization before it came for us? I really didn't want to know, because as it currently stood, I knew we at least had a chance of making it out alive.

I stood lookout while the others made food on the remaining fire. We ate, broke camp, and were once again on the trail out. Every step we took back toward civilization gave me a tiny bit more hope. As far as Kyle went, I tried not to think about it, as any scenario I came up with would just make my outlook and demeanor worsen, and none of us were in need of that. Again, in my thoughts, my ingrained selfishness reared its ugly head.

The trail going back was downhill, which made our pace faster. If we just went straight around Hetch Hetchy Reservoir, we could be at the dam and get to a telephone by mid-afternoon. The weather had actually turned on us during the course of the early morning. The bright blue skies were now a cloudy, overcast gray, and it looked like they would be bringing heavy rains with them. I felt it was all the more reason for us to get out of the area quickly.

By the time we reached the reservoir, the temperature had dropped a few degrees and a light drizzle was beginning to fall. Within a half hour, the drizzle turned into an all-out heavy downpour, which slowed our progress considerably.

The dirt turned to mud, and along with the rocks it became a slippery mess. In the span of several hundred yards I had fallen three times. I now sported a bloody elbow and a few extra bruises. I was miserable, and the cold rain was soaking me to the bone.

We kept looking behind us and up on the ridges for any sign of the demon. The heavy rains had reduced our visibility to tens of yards. It was quite possible the demon was near to us, but we just could not see it. My teeth had been chattering for an hour when Bull put out his hand for us to stop.

I looked in every direction but could not see a threat. Bull was in deep thought about something. I waited for him to finish before asking what it was. After almost a full minute of us standing there silently in the miserable, pouring rain, he finally turned and told us his thoughts.

He reasoned that instead of us going to the dam, we should retrace our steps to where I had first spotted the meteor. I thought it was a terrible idea, as we were getting fairly close to the dam... and possibly a phone. With a phone, we could call and get the real help needed to find Kyle.

In my mind I reasoned it was not good for me to be running myself ragged out there when there were much more qualified people who could be summoned. But I was not about to let that little thought out in that way, so I tried to convince Bull it was best to go directly for help.

My excellent salesmanship was not working that day. Bull had decided we needed to try to find Kyle as quickly as possible. He reasoned the longer it took, the less likely it was there would be a good outcome for Kyle, if he was even still alive. And his final point sold his position. Who would believe our story? We were just as likely to get ourselves locked up as we were to get a team out to hunt for Kyle. After less than a minute of deep thought, I had come to the same conclusion.

We reached Wapama Falls about noon. We pulled out one of the tarps and stretched it out on a rope tied between four trees. It was angled to allow the rain to run off the down-sloped end. I desperately wanted the warmth of a raging fire, but we were stuck with having to be happy with not having the rain fall on our heads. We were also now without any fishing or hunting to help out our food supplies. It was dry rations for lunch, of which we had very little.

We had several crackers and some cheese, and we opened a can of Spam. For an energy boost, I shared a chocolate bar I had been saving for myself. With selfishness generally dominating my reasoning, it was an unusual move for me. I believe that was the first moment I began to care more about the others than myself. The move brought with it a strangely satisfying feeling.

As the rain fell, we each filled our canteens from the rainwater as it ran off the edge of the tarp. Despite my new loathing for anything wet, I managed several gulps of the water before refilling the canteen. We would rest for twenty minutes and then get back on the trail. I wanted desperately to stay under the tarp, but I knew the sooner we moved, the sooner we would find Kyle, and the sooner our misadventure would be over.

As we sat in the wet and cold, I began to reflect on the trip. My first day at Yosemite, while riding in the jeep, had been a disaster. But each new day had brought with it a new appreciation for the beauty of the area.

I had more than a few moments where I imagined how great it would be to have a house on this or that big ridge. The fatigue of the hiking would quickly change my mind, but then the next wonder would appear and I would imagine it all over again. That all ended with Kyle's disappearance. I could not wait to be away from the miserable place that Yosemite was.

Just after lunch, we hit the trail head that would take us back up to Laurel Lake. I was dreading it, as it was once again an uphill climb. If we had continued on to the dam, which was only another hour in the cold, heavy rain, we would have been out of the dreadful place for good.

The climb up the trail away from Hetch Hetchy was awful. My boots slid with almost every step and the cold rain continued to fall, occasionally sending a torrent of rushing, frigid water across our path. As we reached the first crest, the rain let up for several minutes, so we stopped for a moment's rest. We now had visibility of a half mile.

It was then when we got our first real look at the demon. It was standing on a rock on the next ridge, looking directly at us. I don't think it had expected the slack in the rain, as it had been caught out in the open. It was like nothing I had seen before. It was silvery metallic in color and stood on three spindly legs. It was also not an animal but instead... a machine.

Since the suspected Roswell crash in 1947, I had been fascinated with the possibility of alien life being out there. It was just a curiosity, and I never dreamed I would one day be looking at something from another world. This thing being from just that was something I was certain of. The fantasy stories of aliens visiting Earth... had become all too real.

### Chapter 8

### _______________________

**B** ull and Allie were also bewildered. What was this mechanical beast and where had it come from? I wanted to know how it was moving around on its own; it was obvious to me it was not alive. It was instead something someone had made. But it clearly had reasoning abilities, as it was able to move agilely about on the rough terrain.

Bull speculated perhaps it belonged to the military, or some secret lab, but I was confident this was well beyond man's abilities for 1957. Perhaps our science would one day progress to the point where this was possible, but it was not within our reach for the day. Mechanical things required a human brain to operate in anything more than a simple straight-line or pattern. This silvery beast did not have a living brain, and it was unlike anything we had ever seen.

I then began to think about the dead animals. It suddenly occurred to me that if I was going to explore an alien world, I would probably do the same. I would send out a probe to gather as much information as I could.

At that moment I had no doubt in my mind this demon was an alien scout. And with that thought I began to think about the meteor I had seen a few nights before and how it seemed much bigger than this beast. I began to feel Bull was right and we needed to make every effort to find Kyle as soon as possible.

I wondered if he was still alive and if this thing was preparing to dissect him? Or if it had just taken him prisoner, was it going to take him back to its own planet? Was there a mothership of sorts? The questions were coming to me faster than I could make sense of them.

For some reason I found myself now suddenly enamored with the whole mess. It was now exciting, and I just had to know what was going on. My fears quickly melted away, turning instead to obsession. It was like every scary story I had read where you knew the person should not go down into the dark basement after hearing a strange noise, but for some reason I just had to go look.

As we stood staring at the beast, Bull turned and looked at me. He knew I now knew we had to go ahead to try to find Kyle. He knew I would no longer be the grump or the one who wanted out. Bull had known me for most of my life, and he knew when I latched onto something, it would be difficult for me to let go. It was my obsessive compulsion to meet this challenge head-on, and to solve whatever mystery there was.

Bull pulled out his mini binoculars and stared at the demon as it stared back. It was almost seven feet tall and had three spindly legs. Each leg had three joints aside from the one where they attached to the body, and each joint had what looked like three tools. He could make out what looked like pliers, scissors, a six-inch-long blade with a serrated edge, and a drill.

There were other appendages, but he was not certain what they were. At the bottom of the legs were the small, triangular feet that had left the smudge marks we had followed. On top of the three legs was an upside-down, shallow, dome-shaped head that was flat on top. I thought of it as a head, but it was really the body and head of whatever this was.

The eyes were situated just under the rim of the flat top. It would no doubt have to tilt its head backward in order to look up to any degree. We would later speculate this might give us an advantage, if we could somehow attack it from above.

As Bull watched, the eyes of the beast looked away and then turned downward as if looking at the rocks it was standing on. Then as if moving like a gazelle, it turned and sprinted away from us, up and over the ridge and out of view.

The demon was fast, faster than us. And it was agile, given the way it bounded over the rough terrain so effortlessly. Even though I was excited to be there, a feeling of apprehension crept back into my mind. It did not look nearly fast enough to outrun bullets, and it did not appear at first glance to have any weapons. But who was I to be happy about confronting it when all I was carrying was a bat?

I had come out of the trough of misery that had held me hostage for the past twenty-four hours, only to get onto another roller coaster. But at least I was no longer pining for home. This was the life of my brother-in-law, and even though it involved grave danger, I was committed to finding and rescuing him.

We had a small valley ahead we had to climb down into, followed by another climb to the top of the ridge on the other side. It would then be a long walk back across a plateau to get back up to Laurel Lake. We would also have to deal with the heavy rain, which had returned with a vengeance.

When we got down into the valley below, we were met with a once-small stream that was now a raging torrent. The rains had swollen it from six feet across to more than twenty. The water was crashing and churning over and around the large rocks that lined the normally quiet flow.

We walked upstream for several hundred yards, but as the rains persisted, the torrent just seemed to grow. We could not safely cross, so we instead set up the tarp to sit out the rains until the torrent died down. It rained steadily for more than four hours before it slowed substantially.

But the torrent had not gone down. It seemed like an endless stream of water coming down into this ravine that had trapped us from getting across. As we waited, the day turned to night and the stream continued to rage. We would have to wait until morning before moving on.

The sides of the valley were steep in the area surrounding us, which meant an attack could only come from one end of the ravine or the other. Because of the canyon's shape, the demon, if it chose to, would have a difficult time attacking from above, so we had lucked into a very defensible position.

We had taken the time when the rain had slacked off to also build a rock wall just out from either end of the tarp. I remember at one earlier point thinking I was glad we had bright red tarps. They would be easy to spot from the air if anyone had to search for us. At our new location and with the new situation, I was wishing for a forest green or granite gray.

But the demon already knew where we were, so it wasn't like we needed to hide. I then had the realization that even though we had been sitting there under the tarp all afternoon, and even though I was still soaked to the bone, I was no longer shivering. Maybe it was the adrenaline from the excitement, or maybe I was just fatigued earlier, but either way, I was once again somewhat comfortable.

As the night came, the temperature didn't drop much from where it had been. It had been cool all day with the rain. With nothing dry to use in a fire, we would be spending the night without it. With the overcast skies and the lack of a fire, the night became pitch black. I could not remember having ever seen such blackness, as I could not make out my hand in front of my face.

I began to think, if we got attacked, the only point of reference we would have would be those piercing, red eyes. I reasoned they would make great targets for Bull and Allie. As the darkness came, we each sat with our backs to one another for the warmth it provided, as well as to give us a 360-degree view.

With no light to speak of, we were left with listening to every drip or splatter from rainwater saturating the surrounding trees or the constant low roar that was the raging stream several hundred feet away. The sounds all seemed amplified, and with the complete blackness, we felt it would allow the demon to move about freely without being known; that is, unless we were able to see its eyes.

We also decided the red tarp would give away our position, so we took it down and rolled it up. We then talked quietly for an hour about what we had seen. We were all fatigued from the day's hike and the lack of food, so Bull advised that two of us should sleep while the other two pulled guard duty. Allie and I took the first watch while Bull and Susi bedded down for the night.

Allie could normally carry on a conversation with just about anyone, and about anything, but she was almost dead silent that night. It was as though I had to prompt her for a response to every little question or statement I put out. It would seem that even as fearless as she normally was, the whole thing was beyond what she knew how to deal with. It was the same for the others.

For me, I never wanted to talk more in my life. I wanted to know exactly what everyone was thinking, so I could draw better conclusions for myself. If Allie thought there was a weakness we could exploit, I wanted to know what it was. If Bull thought they ran on diesel fuel, I wanted to know so I could scheme about how to take out their supply.

I stared into the darkness with my shift almost over. I could close my eyelids and not notice a difference. The dread of discovery had filled my thoughts. It was then when the demon eyes made themselves known. They were popping in and out of my vision, and at first I could not make out if they were getting closer. I hesitated for a moment before telling Allie and waking Bull and Susi.

We watched for ten minutes as the eyes went from right to left and from the creek up to the canyon wall and then back toward the creek again. It looked as though the demon was searching for us in a pattern. We sat still behind our rock wall with only our eyes peering out above it.

As we watched the red eyes move back up beside the canyon wall to our left, Bull reached out and felt in the darkness for my head with his big right hand. When he had a hold, he turned my head back down toward the creek. A moment later I saw a second set of the red, demon eyes. We had been watching the one intently as it had gone over by the canyon wall, leaving the second unnoticed as it moved up along the creek.

I could only make out one eye, which told me it was looking up the creek in front of itself and not toward us. The first one had remained close to the canyon wall, and I could now tell it was indeed approaching us. We were a hundred feet from the wall and two hundred feet from the creek. I could only hope the angle it had taken would have it passing to our side.

We all watched quietly and kept ourselves as well hidden as possible as the two demons slowly worked their way past us. The one by the creek moved by first, followed by the other, missing us by less than fifty feet. As they crept slowly by, they got to the point where we could no longer see their red, glowing eyes. It was very disconcerting knowing they were there, so very close to us, and yet we could no longer see them.

Had they passed without seeing us? Were they almost as blind as we were when it came to the darkness? Would we have been noticed had we moved? I longed to know the answers to all of those questions. But I had no desire to find out in that moment.

The red eyes had gone invisible to us for almost five minutes when out of nowhere I got a violent urge to sneeze. It was one of those where it comes upon you before you have a chance to cover your mouth or nose. I tried my best to subdue it at the last possible moment, but there was no stopping it.

I let out a loud but short sneeze. I found myself wishing I had one of those sneezes I had seen others do where they horribly scrunched up their faces with almost no sound coming out except for a little snnnit. If the demons had ears, I was certain they had heard mine. And heard it they had.

Two sets of eyes turned back in our direction. Two sets of eyes now searched for who or what had disturbed the rain-soaked valley. Two sets of red, demon eyes were now looking for me. My feelings of ultimate dread had returned. I worried my heartbeat would give us away.

We sat still, each of us breathing as quietly as we could, each of us watching for the red eyes to lock onto us, each of us waiting for the inevitable confrontation that was before us, a decent-sized rotten branch on a nearby tree cracked and then fell to the forest floor with a wet thud.

It seemed it was our lucky night. It was an event we were desperately in need of. Bull, Allie, and Susi all had their guns at the ready while I had a firm grip on my bat, but fate had seen to it we would not have to fight.

The red eyes immediately turned toward where the branch had fallen and focused on that point. They sat motionless for several minutes before turning back away from our position. The rest of the night was spent looking up the valley toward where we they had last been seen.

Dawn's first light brought an eerie pale color to the valley, but a welcome color it was. We had survived another encounter with the demons, and this gave us further hope we could somehow find Kyle. And with a little luck, we might even be successful if a fight was needed. We were thinkers... they were machines.

### Chapter 9

### _______________________

**O** n inspection of the creek, it was decided we could make our way across. The rains had ended, and the night had given the flood of water a chance to run down the valley and out of our way. After crossing we moved down the creek to where the trail picked up to take us to the top of the ridge.

The rain soaked granite of the trail was slick and unsteady underfoot. Before reaching the top of the ridge, we encountered several steep ascents. Bull climbed first, throwing back a rope for us to secure ourselves. Allie slung the line around her waist and secured it with a simple bowline knot. Showing off her athleticism, she was quickly up the incline, tossing the rope back for Susi.

My sister moved up next. With a knot tied and two sets of arms pulling, she carefully walked up the rock face with a seemingly smooth effort. I was next. Considering my track record for disaster, the rope was needed.

As I walked myself up onto the final rock, my right boot began to slide out. I tried in vain to get my balance with a stable foothold, but none was there to be had. In a most un-elegant move, I slipped and tumbled backward, falling six feet before Bull could pull tight on the line.

The tumble brought with it more bruises and a rope burn around my waist. As I made the climb for a second time, I was again thankful for my friend. From that point to the top of the ridge offered far less danger.

We had a long walk across the plateau to get back to Laurel Lake. The terrain was still wet and muddy, but even with my new bruises, I was still excited about our hunt for the demons. The fact there were now two did nothing to lessen my enthusiasm. Man was hunting aliens and I was a part of the team.

As we walked, the skies began to clear and the temperature began to climb as drier air moved in. With the clouds gone, we would also have a chance for moonlight, as the sliver of moon from the previous night would be getting bigger with each passing day. Being out of the canyon would add to the brightness. I was happy to not be faced with another night of pure blackness.

As the sun warmed my face and began to dry my clothes, I could once again imagine building a big, beautiful home in the area. As I walked, I imagined constructing a small fortress and keeping a watch on the skies; intruders would be confronted early and sent packing back to whence they came.

I found myself consumed with different scenarios of how I would defeat the aliens or even how I might interrogate one if it was captured. I would demand it tell us its secrets or I would take it apart piece by piece with my bat. My bold and brazen train of thought was only broken periodically to look back down the trail behind us; there was no sign we were being followed.

We had a number of smaller ravines to cross along our way. With each one we would lose our ability to see for any distance. We tried our best to get in and out of them as quickly as possible because of the added threat. As we climbed our way down into one of the ravines, our fears of being trapped became justified.

One of the demons had walked up to the edge of the ravine several hundred yards away from us. We were in a bad position and could not attempt a retreat, as that to would leave us fully exposed. Our only choice was to turn and run down the ravine with the hope of finding a defensible position.

We stood without motion as the demon scanned the ravine from the other side. I repeated over and over in my mind that we were invisible and that the demon would not see us. My thoughts of having magical powers ended when it stopped and locked its red eyes on us.

On Bull's command, we all turned and began running down the ravine at our best clip. I glanced back to see the demon disappear and then reappear up on the ridge as it followed our movement. It was easily apparent it was gaining on our position.

As we came upon a split in the ravine, Bull made the command decision to send Allie and Susi down the split while he and I led the beast away. There was no time to argue, and the girls turned and hid behind a boulder to wait for the demon to pass.

Bull and I both had to stop when the demon reached the edge of the ravine across from where the girls were crouching. Bull raised his .45 and fired a shot that skipped off a rock about two feet from it. I yelled and waved my bat. The demon turned back toward us and began bounding from rock to rock, gaining on us as we continued to run. The girls made their way safely up the split and out of the ravine as we continued to flee.

The demon had closed to within fifty yards of our position when the ravine finally opened into a flat expanse. We kept running straight ahead to a small outcropping of rocks that would offer us cover as we attempted to defend ourselves. The rocks were four feet high in front with a much larger boulder located just behind us. Bull had his .45 and his bear bow, and I had my trusty bat. We had not seen any type of weapon on the demon other than the obvious use of the knife blade for dissecting animals.

We crouched behind the rock, Bull with his .45 at the ready and me hoping I would not be in need of my bat. With our somewhat secure position, we hoped the demon would determine we were too well defended. I hoped it would then turn and leave. My hopes however, were not fulfilled.

The demon remained up on the ravine edge and was now keeping itself behind a large rock as it evaluated the situation. We were in a standoff for several minutes before the mechanized monster decided to make its move. A rock about the size of a baseball was hurled at us. After just missing Bull, it shattered on the side of the boulder behind us with a loud crack.

I was sprayed with small bits of debris. Even though the rock fragments did not break the skin, they offered a painful result, making the demon's weapon an effective one. The rocks then began to crack on the boulder behind us one after another.

Bull popped up to fire off a round before being forced back down by the highly accurate throws from the mechanical pitching machine. He had spent a full clip when the demon made its next move. As Bull reloaded, the demon jumped from the ravine edge down into the flats.

I saw the jump and turned to inform Bull of it, as I had been peeking through a crack between two of the rocks. I also informed him that the thing was picking up rocks and heaving them with each of its legs as it advanced toward us. When I turned back to check its progress, a rock hit in the crack directly in front of me. I was lucky I was not blinded as a fine but heavy spray of fractured rock came through the crack and impacted me straight on.

I rolled away from the crack, covering my face in pain. When I pulled my hands back to look, they were covered with blood. The shrapnel from the shattering rock had come through the crack and spattered my face with a thousand tiny grains. The impacted area ran from the tip of my nose down the right side of my face and onto my neck.

It was all surface damage, but it was extremely painful, as the larger bits had embedded themselves into my skin. Bull moved two feet to his left and popped up to fire a shot and was barely able to duck back under cover. Another baseball-sized missile skipped off the rock he had popped up behind and shattered on the boulder behind us. The open expanse did not offer any cover to the demon. It did however, offer a seemingly unlimited supply of projectiles to be heaved at us. And the alien machine had a deadly accurate throw.

For just an instant I got the crazy notion I could take a swing at one of the rocks with my bat and maybe launch it right back at our attacker... "crazy notion" turned out to be the correct term. I timed the next three impacts and popped up ready for the fourth, swinging my bat as I rose. To my delight, I actually hit the rock dead on with the fat part of the bat. But unlike a baseball, the rock did not compress and then recoil off the bat.

It instead shattered and again sprayed me with debris. I dropped back behind cover just as the next rock skipped off the top edge of the rock where I had been standing. It cracked on the boulder wall behind us.

Using the same timing technique as I had, Bull then popped up and fired off one more round before ducking back down. He then informed me that the demon was continuing its advance. It had us pinned down, and he could not get off a decent shot to slow it.

He then moved to the left a few more feet, popped up, and fired off another round. This strategy allowed him to get off a shot after each move, but he did not have time to aim with any kind of accuracy. The demon was also moving from side to side as it advanced toward us.

The fifty yards turned into forty and then thirty. With each yard closer the demon moved, the more accurate its throws became and the deadlier it was. At twenty yards Bull popped up for the last time, as the demon had guessed where to make its next throw, catching him on his way down.

The rock skipped off our cover and next made a glancing blow off Bull's scalp just as he descended. It was enough of a scrape to cut the top of his head open, starting a flow of blood. With this, Bull changed tactics and began to just try to pop up his hand with the gun itself to fire off a shot.

I sat just staring at his attempts as the blood dripped from my shrapnel-encrusted face and a single line of blood made its way down his. Bull fired another round; we heard it make an impact, and the parade of rocks stopped.

We waited a full thirty seconds, and then Bull decided to check to see if the demon was still alive before he popped up himself. He took out a handkerchief and wrapped it around a stick, poking it up above the rock. The demon took the bait and again started its barrage of stone missiles, with the first one striking the stick-and-handkerchief decoy dead on.

All I could do was stay behind cover, lying on the ground as the debris from each shattering stone filled the air all around us. Bull made a move toward the end of our defense wall and the rocks followed him, shattering on the boulder wall just above his position. We were trapped, and it was now inevitable that we would be overtaken.

As a distraction, I poked my bat up and down and moved it from side to side. That strategy only worked for a few throws before a direct hit on the bat almost knocked it from my hand. I entertained thoughts of having one good swing at this beast if it got close enough to me, but I knew the chance of that was slim. The demon was smart. It had been adjusting its attack all along the way in order to counter our every defensive change. And it was intelligent enough to try to trick us into coming out when it had stopped its barrage.

The rocks continued to shatter behind us, and we were soon forced into covering our faces in order to protect our eyes from the debris. I had no doubt it was the end for us. The thrill of the hunt, which I had latched onto earlier, seemed like a curse that was going to inevitably do us in.

I didn't want to die, but it seemed I had no choice in the matter. Bull was attempting to get an angle on the demon by moving as far away from me as he could. All it was going to do was allow the demon to focus on him with his .45 as I sat helplessly toward the other end of our defensive line.

As the demon closed to ten yards, the angle of the rocks began to change, with each one now starting to come in at a downward slant. This made it even more difficult to protect ourselves, as with the new angle the beast had also slowed down its throwing speed. The result was rocks that were no longer shattering but were instead now bouncing around between the boulder and our wall in front. My thoughts next turned to the fact I was now going to be stoned to death. Bull had already taken four hard hits and was showing the pain from each of them.

As a last effort to try to distract the demon so he could get off one last shot, I began to pound the bat on the ground just hoping the noise would be enough. It worked, but not before the last rock it heaved in Bull's direction bounced and caught him square in the forehead, knocking him nearly unconscious. As the first several rocks now began to bounce around my end of the wall, I knew the end was upon me. My demon-hunting days were over.

As I cowered, awaiting a certain death, a barrage of gunfire erupted from the flats! I could hear clear impacts on the demon. It was the girls! They had doubled back!

The rock throwing ended as the shots continued. In what was probably the quickest decision I had ever made in my life, I jumped and rolled over to Bull. I picked up his .45 and popped up from behind our rock wall, just in time to see the demon recoil as another one of Allie's bullets cut through its outer shell.

I fired off a round from Bull's cannon of a gun and put a large hole square in the middle of the beast. A spray of demon bits exited the other side as the recoil from the .45 shook the gun from my weak and injured hands and onto the ground. This happened just as the girls were reloading. And even though I had made a dead-center strike on the beast with a .45, it continued to function.

With that one hit, the adrenaline was now pumping through my veins, and I felt as though I could now take it on hand to hand. I looked down toward my bat lying beside me. I wanted to reach for it, but it seemed time was standing still.

The demon was on the defensive, and instead of throwing rocks, it sprayed out a green mist. It then turned back toward me and jumped. In one bound it cleared the ten yards between us and landed on the rock directly in front of me. With its next leap it went up and over the large boulder behind us, blocking it from more shots from the girls. I could hear it continuing to run as it bounded away.

I recovered Bull's .45 and then looked back toward where the girls had been standing. They both backed up as the green mist descended upon the area around where it had been sprayed. As I watched, I could see the bits of demon that had been blown from it by our gunfire beginning to dissolve. Also, the grass and other organic matter in the mist seemed to disappear before my eyes; all that remained was dirt and rock.

I could only reason that as a defensive move, the demons cleaned up after themselves, leaving nothing behind for an enemy to make use of. It would seem to be a very effective and well-thought-out strategy. It was evident they had seen action before.

The girls circled around the remains of the dissolving mist and made their way over to our location. Bull was now sitting upright, and although he was awake, he was groggy and confused. Allie nursed the cut on his scalp, and Susi wet a handkerchief with water from her canteen and began to clean my face.

She then pulled a pair of tweezers from her pack and began to pick the larger bits of rock from my skin. It was painful, but the adrenaline coursing through my veins made it tolerable. I had gotten my revenge for the shrapnel when I blew the hole through the demon. I viewed my battle scars as nothing more than a badge of honor.

There were now two new heroes to thank. After several minutes of nursing, Allie decided we had better get out of the area, as there was still one more of the aliens roaming about. We gathered ourselves, donned our packs, and made our way out of the ravine.

We had another two hours to go to get to Laurel Lake and only about three hours of daylight left. We would need time to set up a defensive position once we arrived, as we could no longer just camp out in the open. We would also want time to tend to our wounds and to get food in our bellies. Our energy was running low.

We had not eaten anything since our dry lunch the afternoon before. Fatigue and hunger would not be our friends if we were to be fighting for our lives. And fighting for our lives was exactly what we were doing. We reached our previous campsite at Laurel Lake, and Allie went looking for small game while I attempted to fish.

I no longer feared death by the demons, as I had now been to the brink and had survived. After winning our small battle, I felt it had brought out a warrior in me who had been fast asleep, deep down inside. I would battle the demons with my last breath if that's what it took. I wasn't sure the others felt the same.

Before casting into the lake, I decided to give calling Minhafa another try. I knelt down on a rock by the water's edge and smoothed the water gently while repeating "Minhafa" three times. I looked around afterwards and was let down that seeing a mountain lion earlier, supposedly a spirit protector, was really just a coincidence.

As I cast into the lake, I hooked a nice fish. After reeling it in, I glanced up before turning back to the others. There on a rock, five hundred feet away, stood a proud and mighty mountain lion. I was emboldened with a strong feeling it was indeed Minhafa and it would be watching over me, ready to come to the rescue should the need arise.

The girls had protected me today, but as a superstitious chap, I took comfort in knowing my spirit protector was also watching. It was just too much of a coincidence it had appeared to me again after I had summoned it a second time. Little did I know how true those thoughts might be. After several additional casts, I returned to our camp with three large fish in tow and a grin on my scabbing face.

### Chapter 10

### _______________________

**W** e decided to stay the night at our previous campsite by Laurel Lake. It offered open expanses going out several hundred feet to the woods. And there were almost none of the horrible baseball-size rocks lying around. To our back we had the lake. If the demons were to attack us here, they would need a new strategy.

With our limited amount of daylight remaining, we gathered an abundance of sticks and branches, which were just dry enough to burn on our fire. We built a defensive rock wall with stones large enough to not easily get knocked away by thrown rocks, and we set up several fires that we could use to keep our perimeters lit up.

We took a few minutes to inventory our ammo, and the count was much lower than desired. Bull had brought a box of fifty of the .45 cal rounds, of which he had used twenty-four. Allie and Kyle had each brought a box of 9 mm rounds, they had sixty-one remaining. Since we had been using Susi's .22 for hunting, she was down to twenty-eight. We would have to be careful with our ammo. Other than our guns, we were left with my bat, Bull's bear bow with four arrows, a small hatchet strapped Bull's pack, and several hunting knives.

We would not reach the area where the meteor had previously fallen for another day, and we would then have at least one additional day after to make it back to any civilization. If we were able to find and to free Kyle, we would try for Cherry Lake dam with hope there would be a telephone.

The others had a forlorn look to them. I was still all hopped up on the fact there were aliens out there we were fighting with, and we had evaded them once and then beaten them back. I was also excited I had a secret weapon waiting in the woods should I really need it. I had convinced myself Minhafa was real.

Allie returned with another rabbit, and with my three fish, we had our first full, hot meal in several days. We needed every bit of it, as our bodies were tired after slogging through the rain and fighting with the demon. Our lack of sleep was of no help either.

When I offered up the fish, I told the others of my Minhafa sighting across the lake. They all brushed it off as interesting, but further coincidence. I took it as a sign it was there to watch over me. A week before, I would have called anyone who thought such a nutcase, but that wasn't what I believed any more.

As we sat around the campfire, we talked about the skirmish with the rock-throwing demon. It looked as though they were not equipped with any weaponry. Other than being able to heave heavy objects at us, to make use of the tools on their legs, or to spray the green fog we had seen in our last encounter, they were unarmed.

We talked about how the girls had managed several hits on its body with the 9mms and how I had the one shot that blew a hole straight through it, yet it was still able to turn and flee. We reasoned that perhaps I had missed anything vital, or maybe they were just that tough. We had no way of knowing.

The one thing we were sure of was we had done enough damage, or had at least offered enough of a defense, that it knew it was time to leave. I reasoned perhaps it was scared, if it was possible for a machine to be scared, and it decided to cut its losses and run. I was thankful there had not been two of them together or we would have surely been overrun. Losing was not an option.

I was fascinated by the intelligence we had seen displayed by a machine. They could think on the fly as well as any of us. Even though our little group was now at war with them, I had a strong desire to meet the makers of the machines face to face.

I pondered how interesting and exciting it would be to talk with a being from another world. What other technology did they have? Flying cars? Force fields? And rockets that could reach other planets... my mind was consumed with thoughts of what we might learn from galactic travelers.

But none of that really mattered while we were at war. They had outright attacked us and possibly even kidnapped one of our own. The answers to my many questions would have to wait until such time as we came in contact with a live alien or captured one of the machines.

As my mind continued to wander, I imagined dunking a live alien repeatedly in the cold mountain water or threatening to burn out its eyes with red-hot coals from our fire. That is, if they even had eyes. If the stories from Roswell were true, their eyes would be big and black. I imagined them telling me everything I wanted to know after I worked them over with my bat. Maybe that was just a bit of my short attitude coming through; I wasn't sure, but it was exciting to think about it as it fed into my already excited state.

Bull interrupted my alien daydreams by telling me to hit the hay. He and Susi were taking the first watch. We would want to start early in the morning so we should maximize our sleep. With about six hours' sleep in the last two days, I did not foresee bedding down early being a problem. As I lay in my sleeping bag, I once again began to think about the aliens and what might lie ahead for us. The fatigue took me down in only a few minutes.

I was awakened by Bull at 1 a.m. Allie was up and Susi was fast asleep. Bull had let me sleep over the hour after several failed attempts to wake me at midnight. I thanked him for giving me the extra rest and then pressed him to get some sleep of his own.

Bull had a nasty knot on his forehead from the ricocheting rock and a small cut on his scalp. The knot was still prevalent, but shrinking, and the cut had scabbed over. It was the first time I ever thought of Bull as being vulnerable. It seemed he was human after all.

When the girls had tended to our wounds at the end of our demon skirmish, they had taken the time to remove all the small pieces of rock embedded in my lower face. It was painful, but they managed to get every little piece. I then washed my bloody face in the lake before dousing it with iodine from our small med kit. I was not in need of an infection on top of my other injuries.

The rock debris had not gone deep into my skin, but it left me with a face full of small scabs. I thought at the time it was just a few more minor wounds to add to my long list of maladies from the trip: almost falling sixty feet into a ravine, bruised ribs, rope burns, a broken wrist bone, and a long list of other bruises. The scabby face was just icing on the cake.

Had I been lucky or was I really just that tough? I preferred to think the latter, and if anyone asked, that was what I would tell them. And to top it off, I had taken on an alien machine with nothing but a bat. Again, the feeling of being a warrior returned.

As we sat by the fire, Allie was her same quiet self she had been the last several days. I didn't really mind this evening, as it gave me time to daydream and to plan out strategies. I thought we might have an advantage if we could lure one of the demons into a trap. Tricks and schemes swirled through my mind.

The girls' backtracking had worked wonders, and if we could outsmart these things with more trickery, I was all for it. They had laid their own trap on us during our last battle, when the demon waited quietly for one of us to raise our heads.

I wondered if we could lure one of them into a ravine where we could attack it from above, or maybe we could gain advantage on a steep trail by rolling big boulders down at it. My mind was whirring away at coming up with any idea we could use.

I didn't want to take credit from the girls for their crossfire, but it was my one dead-on shot that had convinced the demon to turn and run. It was the one right thing I had done on the trip, and I wanted a little pat on my back for it, even if it was me doing the patting to myself.

Up until that day I had been a curse on the outing: always getting injured, always with a negative attitude, always complaining. But I had blown a three-inch hole in an alien machine earlier that day, possibly saving us all with my one quick thought and move. I thought it perhaps time for me to emerge from the swamp of negative personality I had lived most of my life in. It was in fact, past that time.

We kept just enough wood on the fire to keep it burning low. The light from it was good and the heat from it warm, but we did not want it to attract attention. The night was calm, as were the woods surrounding us... up until about 3 a.m. That was when our newest sighting began.

Several owls could be heard hooting out warnings during the normal quiet. I took Allie by the arm and gestured in the direction the sounds had come from. She replied in a low voice that it could be our demon, or possibly just one of the predators that lurked about, hunting at night. Many of the animals in Yosemite were nocturnal.

I kept a close lookout for signs of the demon in that area. For an hour there was nothing. But the demons were on the hunt that night, and it was us who were their prey. The red, demon eyes of an alien machine soon made themselves known as they peered through the woods. I scrambled to wake Bull and Susi.

We stayed low behind the rock wall we had constructed, peering intently into the woods. The eyes just stared at us as if in a contest of wills. Then, just as suddenly as they had appeared, they were gone. We waited patiently for their return, but they did not reappear. So Bull made the decision to be the aggressor; we were going to walk the perimeter line of the woods.

My reasoning mind was not happy with the idea of scouting for the demon, but for some reason I volunteered to go along. The girls stayed crouched behind the wall as Bull and I made our way across the clearing before us. I was apprehensive and constantly turned my gaze from side to side.

When we reached the edge of the woods, Bull stood quietly staring into them for several minutes. The calm and quiet of the woods now somehow seemed sinister. I fully expected a rock to emerge from the darkness, striking me in the face at any moment. I began to shiver from the intensity of the situation and the cold night air.

I was then startled by the sound of splashing water. Bull had thrown a rock into the lake to see if it would draw attention. It did not. I chastised him in a low voice, to which he replied that sometimes with a predator you needed a diversion; they would be wary of any other activity that was close by.

We began a long, slow walk along the tree line, peering constantly into the darkness that lay beyond. Just as we reached the halfway point of our journey, Bull turned and placed his hand out. In the distance of the deep wood, we could see a single red eye moving to the left. The demon was moving around behind our camp.

I pleaded with Bull to return to the security of our block wall, but he had another plan in mind. Suddenly, in a quiet sprint, he headed into the dark wood. He was intent on circling in behind the demon before it could do the same to us. I shook my head in disbelief as I quickly and quietly followed after.

It was madness, chasing into the dark woods after an alien machine. Bull carried his .45 and I my trusty bat, but the alien had a nearly unlimited supply of anything that could be thrown. I was not looking forward to confronting it. We were at a disadvantage, fighting an enemy we did not know.

For the better part of twenty minutes, we worked our way in and behind the slow moving machine. It continued to work its way toward the left side of the camp. Bull moved silently, like a lion in the tall grass, while I followed clumsily behind. It was not long before I stepped on a large branch, causing it to snap, almost sending out an echo through the dark wood from under my foot.

The red eyes spun around in our direction. Bull and I stood still. For several minutes the demon peered toward us. I stood in plain view, holding my breath, only concealed by the darkness of the night. The demon took several steps toward me and then stopped. It continued to stare for several minutes, waiting for a foe to emerge. I stood frozen, frozen in fear, my breaths slow and steady, my bat held firmly by my side.

After almost a minute of quiet, the demon again took several steps toward me. It then stopped and turned slightly away, peering into the darkness from where it had come. Bull waited patiently behind the cover of a large tree, his weapon by his side and at the ready. The standoff lasted several more minutes before the alien machine again continued on its previous path.

I wondered if perhaps their vision in the darkness was no better than ours. It was difficult for me to conceive of an alien race that could travel the stars but who did not have the power to see in the dark. It was an ability I was ever so glad they did not have or for whatever reason could not use. I took in a long breath as the alien moved away.

I stood motionless for several more seconds before being able to take my first step, terrified that at any moment I would again give away our position. Each foot probed the forest floor gently in front of me before bearing any weight. My confidence slowly began to return.

We followed the alien machine for another half hour before it stopped and slowly turned toward the camp. It moved to a position just short of the tree line and began to probe around in the pine straw for items that could be thrown. Over the course of another half hour, it amassed a pile of several hundred projectiles. We watched quietly from the woods behind it. Again, the fear built up in me, as only thirty meters of wood stood between us and our nemesis.

The demon began to quietly take the stones it had gathered and to gently toss them into the clearing that separated the woods from our campfire. I was unsure of its purpose until Bull whispered it was likely seeding the grounds in front of it before attempting another rock-throwing advance.

I marveled at the intelligence the alien machine displayed. It was above and beyond my thinking, making me ever more thankful for the accompaniment of my friend. Bull had a way of figuring out people's plans before there was an impact. He would then plan for his own actions to counter whatever was coming his way. He was one of those people who always seemed a step ahead and always played to win.

We watched quietly from behind as the demon rolled fist-sized stones out into the open grass. Every few seconds Allie would pop up her head to scan the clearing, each time from a different position behind the rock wall. Once the demon picked up its final stone, I clinched my bat tightly. The time for action was about to begin.

When the alien machine took its first quiet step into the clearing, Bull decided to make his move. Without warning, he sprang forward, yelling at the top of his lungs. Shots rang out as he closed on his target from an angle where his misses would not continue on toward the girls.

Several rocks flew in our direction as Bull continued to charge. The machine, caught off guard, then turned and sprinted further out into the clearing. Allie was ready with a barrage of her own. The demon, caught in the crossfire, made a hard left and headed back toward the tree line. The girls held their fire, as they were unsure of our location.

The red eyes then turned in my direction as the beast moved into the treeline. Bull continued to fire whenever he thought he had a shot. The demon raced directly toward me.

Terror filled my every thought. Was this it? Had my time finally come? Was I to be a victim of man's first encounter with aliens? The robotic menace bounded through the woods with an effortless rhythm. It was as though it was an experienced beast in its natural habitat. And I was its targeted prey.

I was standing behind a tree with my bat held high as the red-eyed demon approached my position. My arms shook as I clenched the bat with every ounce of my strength. I gritted my teeth as it flashed into view.

I brought the bat down hard and was rewarded with the feeling and sound of a deep metallic crunch. The noise of the encounter echoed through the woods. For a moment the galloping alien machine faltered, almost missing a step. But it quickly regained its footing and continued its sprint into the darkness of the trees, disappearing as quickly as it had come. I stood, still shaking, with my bat at the ready should it decide to turn back my way.

Bull followed in chase, running past my position with his .45 aimed in the alien's direction. He vanished into the blackness of the forest before two more shots were fired. I watched, listening, waiting for a sign my friend was still alive.

Five minutes of fear and anxiety passed before he began to emerge from the darkness. He stopped beside me, placing his giant hand on the back of my neck before shaking me lightly and smiling. He then gestured back toward the camp.

I let out a deep sigh and shook my head as I contemplated the encounter. We walked back into the clearing and toward the girls. I reasoned at that moment hunting aliens was not a job I had the skill to undertake or the nerve to handle. But Kyle was still out there. And I had every intention of finding him and setting things straight. I smiled as I glanced down at my trusty bat. My effort had instilled the tiniest bit of confidence in my unnerved psyche. That confidence was short lived, fading before we reentered the firelight.

### Chapter 11

### _______________________

**O** nly minutes after Bull's rampage had begun, it was over. He had chased the demon from the vicinity of our camp and I had contributed. We collected the rocks from the open area, tossing them toward the lake, before returning to the comfort of the fire and settling in around its warmth. I continued to shiver from shock as we talked of what had just happened.

My nerves were frayed and I was suddenly nauseous. I stood and stepped quickly into the clearing beyond our rock wall. I bent over and violently threw up what dinner I had left in my stomach from the evening meal.

Even though terrified, I had acted bravely when the moment of need had arisen, but I was no warrior. The remains of the rabbit and fish spread out on the tall grass before me told of my true stature. I stood upright and slowly walked to the lake's edge to clean off my humiliation.

When I returned to the campfire, Bull again placed his hand on my shoulder and then began to tell the girls of how I had taken my stand in the face of danger. I had stood firmly, in plain view, without giving away our position. I had then given the demon a pounding with my bat as it attempted to flee. I could tell he was genuinely proud of his little friend. It was an added boost of confidence I was desperately in need of.

As Bull continued to tell the girls what had happened, he reasoned that perhaps his actions had been foolish, but he felt as though he could no longer sit idly by while we were being stalked. He thought the demons might leave us alone if they found us to be too aggressive. It was a gamble. We hoped beyond reason it would somehow pay off.

When we had again settled down, I realized there were still several hours left in the night. We would remain vigilant, watching and waiting for our enemy to return. Our fears were soon realized when a set of the red, demon eyes again appeared deep in the woods. We watched intently as again the alien began its test of wills. This time, Allie had formulated a plan of her own.

I was told to move over toward the left end of the clearing. I was given instruction to jump up and down and to make noise. I would be a distraction to the demon as Bull and Allie attempted to crawl through the tall grass to the tree line on the right. They would then slip quietly through the woods, coming up behind the alien beast as it continued to watch my strange behavior. With luck, they would open fire and put an end to the demon's existence.

It was a bold plan and I was to be the bait. As I stood and walked out into the clearing, I again began to get the shakes. My nerves were unraveling, and the adrenaline coursing through my veins only added to my condition. When I reached my target spot, I laid my bat down in the moist night grass and then began to do jumping jacks.

I could not fathom what mechanical thoughts were going through the alien's brain as it observed my bizarre behavior. I called out numbers as I completed each move. For several minutes I kept the alien's undivided attention as Bull and Allie slithered quietly away. When they had reached the tree line, I stopped and instead began to sing.

The demon continued to stare in my direction as I gave my best rendition of Camptown Ladies. I was a horrid singer and had a sudden thought of the alien turning away in disgust, but it continued its stare. When my rendition had ended, I then picked up my bat and began to stretch as I belted out the national anthem. Strangely, I began to feel a sense of pride that brought a calm to my nerves.

I lived in what I believed to be one of the greatest nations the world had ever known. We were a free people who believed in justice and liberty. We had our issues, but being pushed around on our own soil was not one of them. I then began to look directly at the alien machine as I recited the pledge and pointed my bat at it in a taunting manner. For a brief moment, I had the urge to begin a charge into the woods of my own.

As I began to lean in the beast's direction, its eyes suddenly shifted to its left, to where I would have expected Bull and Allie to be. The red, demon eyes then turned back in my direction and suddenly began to grow in intensity; it was coming my way. I lifted my bat, screamed at the top of my lungs, and then began a charge of my own before three shots rang out from its left. The red eyes then quickly turned away and again disappeared into the darkness of the wood.

Twenty minutes passed before Bull and Allie emerged from the tree line. The demon had gone. It had stopped briefly on a small rise, looking back as a silhouette for only a moment before turning and continuing away. Bull and Allie had followed just long enough to convince themselves it had indeed gone.

We did not sleep for the remainder of the night, as we each spent the final hours staring out into the darkness of the woods. The red eyes remained unseen, and as the first light began to break, I felt a genuine sense of relief. Our night of terror had finally come to an end.

As the predawn light began to glow, I once again picked up Bull's fly rod and headed over to the lake for an attempt at some breakfast. We would need it. The clouds from the day before were now completely gone, and the stars were once again shining in the dimly lit sky.

We told Bull and Susi to return to their sleeping bags, where they could sleep in for an extra hour before the sun would begin to show. It was an attempt to return the favor Bull had given me earlier. I wasn't sure if it would do any good.

The hour gave me enough time to reel in a few extra fish, giving us a hearty meal for breakfast. After I gutted and cooked the catch myself, the others joined me around the campfire. When the fish had been consumed, we began packing up for our next leg of the hunt for Kyle.

Before leaving, we took a few minutes to talk about what we might do when we next encountered the demons. That's when I sprang my ideas on the others. We could set up different traps as we got closer to where we thought they might be. We would then attempt to lure them into the traps, giving us an advantage in our fight.

In my growing confidence and boldness, I offered to be bait for at least one of the trap ideas. Bull looked at me curiously and asked where this new guy had come from. I didn't know what to say, so I just gave him a shrug. My compulsive behavior was turning away from fear and toward the cockiness I sometimes showed. In my younger days, it was a trait that usually appeared just before I got myself into trouble. It was a lesson I could never seem to learn.

We slipped on our packs and started back down to Frog Creek toward the east end of Lake Eleanor. We would follow the lake around to Eleanor Creek and then Eleanor Creek to Cherry Creek. We would then continue up Cherry Creek and cut over to Woods Ridge to the southwest of Cherry Lake. We thought that would take us right to the area where I had seen the meteor fall several nights before. It was also the direction the alien tracks had consistently taken.

Frog Creek brought with it a half-mile stretch of steep canyon walls on either side. The canyon could only be accessed from one end or the other, so we were confident there would be no sneak attacks along the way. As we hiked the rough terrain along the creek, I ran idea after idea through my head. I daydreamed of how we might make use of the particular area we were in. I looked for loose boulders that could be rolled downhill or logs and trees that we might be able to somehow turn into snares.

The further along we walked, the further into this deadly game of war I fell. I pictured myself as the triumphant hero, standing on top of one of the demon machines I had just pummeled with my bat. The press would be all around me, snapping pictures, and the ladies in the crowd would all be fawning and giving me flirtatious smiles.

I then asked Susi about her camera and was reminded she had used all her film on our group pictures from much earlier. She had the business publicity photos Bull and Allie would need, so she had used the last roll on images of general scenery. There would be no pictures of an alien scout to show to the world.

As I trudged along at the back of the pack, I was so into my little head game that I didn't notice the visitor coming up behind us. It was a grizzly, and it weighed in at six hundred fifty pounds. Bull just happened to glance back in my direction in time to see it coming up from behind.

As I continued to walk along, all into my little daydream, I looked up and saw Bull aiming his bow at me with an arrow at the ready. I stopped for a moment, and then turned to look behind me. The grizzly stopped while still fifteen feet away before standing and letting out a fierce roar. The bear stood seven feet tall and had jaws that would easily fit around my head.

In a panic, I tripped over a root while looking back at the bear. I fell back on my pack, fumbling to keep a grip on my bat. By the time I had regained what little composure I had, both Allie and Susi had moved to a position behind me with their weapons drawn. A 9 mm and a .22 were no match for the grizzly, but Bull's Kodiak bow was made specifically for that purpose.

The bear charged. Bull let loose an arrow and immediately pulled the next one from his quiver. At the same time, the girls began to empty their guns into the giant beast. The first arrow hit its mark, driving right through the bear's chest and through a lung, but it still continued to come. The girls' bullets looked like they had no impact at all. Bull fired his second arrow as the bear neared, coming within eight feet. The second arrow traveled through the grizzly's left eye and exited through the back of its skull.

The two arrows were deathblows to the bear as it came to a stop just in front of me. It then collapsed on top of me, pinning me underneath. I had six hundred fifty pounds of bloody and foul-smelling grizzly lying on my chest. It took several minutes for the others to free me from my freshly dead captor.

After all my cockiness about fighting the demons, and all the scheming and planning I had been doing that morning, I was once again not quite the warrior I had envisioned. The grizzly would have mauled me before I had a chance to even know it was coming. I was extremely disappointed in myself for the smugness and overconfidence I had allowed to grow out of control. I promised myself I would not make that mistake again.

I thanked everyone for saving my life; it had been a common theme on our trip. I so desired to have some of that praise heaped on me, but my performance with this encounter was lacking. All I had accomplished was to not watch our back and to be almost crushed by a dead bear. I would have to pick up my game if we were going to go up against the alien machines.

While still in need of food, we cut several pieces of prime meat from the dead animal to take with us for our next meal. Bull stated you don't throw good meat away when you don't know where your next meal is coming from. I for one, looked forward to seeing how it tasted.

With the grizzly episode over, we once again began our hike down Frog Creek. I was extra careful to continuously watch our back. There would be no more ambushes from behind.

Once we emerged from the canyon, we were able to make better time as the lower stretches of Frog Creek opened up and we were no longer forced to hike in the hard terrain. We were at five thousand feet of altitude but were heading downhill toward Lake Eleanor.

The terrain around the southern end of the lake was wide and flat, allowing us to make it to Eleanor Creek by noontime. We decided it would be a good place to have lunch, a good place to consume the bear while the meat was still fresh. I was eager to get my revenge.

Susi and I gathered wood while Bull and Allie made a fire pit and prepared our feast for cooking. By 1 p.m. we were all savagely working over our grizzly steaks. The meat was tough and gamey for my taste, but I found it somehow satisfying to have a full belly of an animal that would have assuredly killed and eaten me.

After lunch we had a short hike down Eleanor Creek. We would camp there for the night. We would then investigate the area just to the west for signs of an alien landing site. With any luck, we would find and rescue Kyle in the morning and be headed toward civilization by noon.

The hike along Eleanor Creek was easy terrain. It helped that we were continuing to move downhill. The surrounding landscape and the beauty of the creek itself once again had me daydreaming about a home in the Yosemite back-country We were halfway down to our planned destination when we came upon Miguel Creek running off to our left. Eleanor Creek made a sharp bend to the west and for a brief length opened into a wide, shallow area.

It was at that moment I noticed a demon walking about a quarter of a mile slightly ahead our position, moving along the other side of Eleanor Creek. I immediately got everyone's attention and pointed it out. There was a human body slung over its top as it walked.

As we stopped and scanned the surrounding landscape for the other demon, Bull pulled out his mini binoculars and watched. The demon made its way up a far hill carrying its captive. It was carrying one of the poachers! As Bull looked on, he could not tell if Scott or Craig was dead or alive. If the demon was taking the poacher to a base camp, we had hopes of also finding Kyle.

The mechanical beast appeared to be agile as it carried its two-hundred-plus-pound victim. We followed as it made a five-hundred-foot climb up the hill on the other side of the creek. The terrain was mild. We hoped to easily keep up with what had now become our prey.

When we reached the peak, we had a clear view for almost a mile down to Cherry Creek and up to the next ridge. We watched as the demon continued its trek, confident we had not been seen. The longer we stayed out of sight, the better our chance of continuing to follow.

While we had learned to constantly watch our backs, the demon seemed to not care, or not be aware, it was being tailed. I thought perhaps we had driven them back after the Laurel Lake battle and they were now heading home. It felt good to be the watcher and not the watched.

It again gave me confidence we were at least on equal footing with our enemy. I wondered if perhaps they were not as intelligent as I had originally thought. Either way, I was slowly regaining my warrior mentality that had been stolen by the dead bear.

The demon made its way down the other side of the hill and turned down toward Cherry Creek. As soon as it was out of sight, we hurriedly made our way down and then up again onto the next ridge; it was another five-hundred-foot climb. I chalked it up to a week's worth of harsh conditioning and the bear meat, as my legs were no longer aching and sore. I would still get fatigued from the climb, but at least at the end I could rest up and be ready to continue on.

The demon had been out of our sight for a good twenty minutes as we made our climb. Once we reached the summit of the hill, we had a clear view all the way to Woods Ridge. It was the high point of the area at six thousand feet of elevation. Bull pulled out the binocs and scanned for the silvery beast. It took less than a minute to locate our nemesis. It was moving slowly up a steep hill on the other side of Cherry Creek, its captive still slung over its top.

I had to congratulate Bull on his hunch about returning to the meteor site. From the maps we had, it looked like the demon was headed straight for Woods Ridge. That would place it right about where I had seen the meteor fall during our first hiking night on the trail.

We sat on the ridge for an hour and watched as the demon carried its captive the two miles' distance. And as we had guessed, it went right to the top of Woods Ridge. It made sense for them to pick that spot, as it gave a decent vantage point for miles around. We were too far away to tell what, if anything, was going on there, but we finally knew where they were.

I was all excited about our find and was eager to get after them. Allie put a lid on my enthusiasm and suggested that instead of going directly at them we first select a defensible site for our camp for the night. She thought we should begin planning out a strategy, such as gathering information before any attempt at an attack.

The decision was made to make our way northwest to the next-highest ridge between Woods Ridge and the Cherry Lake dam. It would place us a mile from the Woods Ridge summit, where we hoped to be able to observe their camp.

We could then mold any findings into whatever plans we made. It would also place us only a few hours from the Cherry Lake dam and a possible phone, if the power station at the dam was already in service. I was eager to rush in, but I knew and trusted the voice of reason coming from the others. Any attempted assault would have to wait.

It was a three-mile hike up Cherry Creek and across to the ridge we had selected. We wanted to avoid taking any path the demons may have regularly used. If we wanted a good shot at potential success, any strategy we were to come up with would need the element of surprise. Besides, we had no way to know if the aliens had armaments at their base camp. All we knew was the demons we encountered had no weapons.

We reached the summit as the sun was nearing the horizon and decided on a site for our camp. It was concealed in the trees and just short of the summit, with the opposite side facing Woods Ridge. Once again I was cursing those red tarps, as we would be unable to use them without possibly drawing attention to ourselves.

We were now down to the last of our dry food provisions and would not be able to hunt or make a fire for any cooking; any smoke and the firelight would be a dead giveaway that we were there. As it turned out, we had gotten lucky with our little bear feast earlier in the day; as the wind was blowing slightly northward, it had kept the demons from spotting the smoke from our fire.

As the sun set, we again built our defensive rock wall and planned how we might counter any assault on our ridge. One of the things we liked about the site we had selected was the lack of small rocks nearby. The demons would have to charge up the hill toward us while we fired down at them. With our ammo beginning to run low, we were in desperate need of an advantage.

The bad thing for that defensive strategy was we were running low on bullets. Susi and Allie had each emptied their guns at the bear, bringing our total count lower and leaving each one with only three more reloads. Bull could only fill two extra clips for his .45. Aside from that, we were down to two arrows, a hatchet, a couple knives, and my bat.

### Chapter 12

### _______________________

**B** ull made his way to the summit with Allie to observe the aliens. I decided it was my chance to go back down to the creek and attempt to catch a fish. We would not be able to cook them, but many a hunter had eaten fish raw on many an outing since man had begun to walk upright. While we liked our food cooked, much of what nature offered was still good in its natural state. I would also look around for any gooseberries, as they had been plentiful so far on our trek. Over the prior week I had received a full education on berry picking.

Bull did not like the idea of me going down to the creek alone, but I was able to convince him I would be OK. I told him if I did not return soon, he could watch for me being carried over to the demon camp. He did not laugh.

The daylight was fading fast, and it made observing the alien compound difficult at best. Our one-mile distance and the low-power binoculars were not ideal for recon at that distance, even though the high mountain air was extremely clear. We had decided that at first light we would try to move west, down into a valley, and then north and up again onto the closest ridge, about a thousand feet away from the aliens.

If we were able to approach from the far side, we could work our way into a good viewing position only a few hundred feet below their base. With any luck, we would spot Kyle and would get a good start on developing a rescue plan. As we continued our surveillance from a distance, my hopes of a rescue continued to rise.

I hiked back down to the creek. As I walked, I was running scenario after scenario through my head about fighting the alien demons and being victorious over them. They would attack and I would bash their tin heads with my bat, spilling their gears and gizmos out onto the ground. My adrenaline level began to rise as I slowly worked my way into a confident state.

I reached the creek and began my attempt to catch a fish while I continued to daydream. With the sun over the ridge-top and the daylight fading, the creek area was becoming dark much faster than I had hoped. As it was, I would only have a few minutes to try my luck. It was then when I spotted the red, demon eyes coming down the creek from the direction of the dam. I was frozen for a moment, not knowing what to do.

The demon was still several hundred feet up the creek and had not made any rapid move in my direction, so I guessed I had not been seen. I quickly ducked behind the nearest boulder and began wondering how I might get out of the situation I was now caught in. I was hoping perhaps Bull had seen the red eyes from up on the ridge and was planning a rescue attempt, but he had not.

Even if he had, it would have taken him ten minutes to get to my position, and the demon was less than a minute away. I did my best to hide the fishing rod and got a firm grip on my bat. I would attempt to stay crouched behind the boulder, and if I was lucky, the demon would pass by without noticing.

I didn't like my plan, but I didn't have the time to come up with anything better. My only advantage was having not been seen in the first place. I crouched behind the boulder, contemplating my fate. I hoped that if spotted, I would at least get one good attempt at the demon before it took me down. I cocked the bat back and readied for a home run swing. I listened intently for the sound of the demon approaching, but with the low roar of the creek right beside me I was not hopeful of hearing it as it moved.

It was then when I heard a heavy breathing sound coming from just behind me. Had the alien outsmarted me and come around the other side of the boulder? I turned my head slowly to get one last look at the enemy before it attacked.

As the back of the boulder came into my view, I was stunned to see a mountain lion crouching there behind me only six feet away. The lion was eyeing me so intently I was certain I was about to become its next meal.

In an instant the giant cat leaped at me. I blinked my eyes, knowing my time was at an end as I fell backward against the boulder. I waited patiently for the inevitable crunching sound of my skull collapsing in its massive jaws.

Time seemed to stand still. I opened my eyes as the tail end of the big cat passed me by. I turned my head just in time to see it catch the demon fully by surprise, knocking it upside down on the rocky edge of the creek.

The big cat continued across, stopping for a moment to glance at me before bounding off up into the woods on the other side. It was Minhafa, and he had saved my life!

My reactions were immediate and true as I stepped forward and took my best swing with the bat, bringing it straight down onto the evidently still-startled demon. I caught the alien machine right where the red devil eyes connected to the body, smashing into them with everything I had.

I pulled the bat back and took another swing and then another, each one doing tremendous damage to the body of the downed alien. The demon was attempting to get its bearings and right itself as its spindly legs felt around, but it never got the chance. On my fourth blow, the legs went still and the demon began to make a low buzzing sound.

With that sound, I stepped back; it was just in time, as a green fog began to spew forth from it. I turned and grabbed Bull's pole and began to make my way back up the ridge, stopping at about fifty feet to make certain my attacker had not come back to life.

I watched as the green fog spread and dissolved everything around it. The demon melted away. Within five minutes the green fog had dissipated and the demon was completely gone. I turned and made my way up the hill to tell the others of my encounter. I finally had a heroic story of my own to tell.

So what if I had help from my spirit protector, and so what if I had no proof of the encounter? I had defeated one of the alien machines by myself and had done it with nothing but my bat.

As I hurried up the hill, I could not wait for the whole saga to be over so I could tell the world of my heroics. The day was a great day for mankind and a great day for me. I reveled in my victory all the way up to the summit and the others.

I was bursting by the time I got to the others. I could not wait to tell of my heroic battle. I went on and on about how Minhafa had jumped right at me and had then knocked the demon over, allowing me to attack.

I told them about how easily the bat crushed the body of the demon and how it continued to try to right itself. And then I told of the green fog it again used to remove all evidence of its existence, once it had met its demise.

During my time at the creek, the others had not gathered anything new about our foe, other than there being two of the demons moving around Woods Ridge. With the elimination of the one by my hand, we now knew that there had been at least three. We reasoned there could potentially be more. There was no way of knowing how many of the machines were walking around, and we had not seen any sign of a ship, or, most importantly, of Kyle. We would have to wait until morning to get a better look.

We took turns sleeping, staggering it so only one person was up at a time. We had no fire to sit around, so the only thing left to do, for whoever was up, was to stare through the binocs at the far ridge. For the remainder of the night, the activity level of our enemy remained at a minimum.

The night passed quickly, and an almost quarter moon offered at least a modicum of light. At the first glow of dawn, everyone was up. We began our attempt to move our observation post closer. It was a mile hike along the back side of the ridge we occupied, then another half mile down into a tight valley, before we would once again approach their position.

It took three hours before we began to climb the ridge closest to the demons. The final hike up the back side would be difficult. The climb coming up from Woods Creek was a steep five-hundred-foot incline.

As we stood at the base of the ridge, Allie caught sight of a demon coming our way. Luck was with us in that only our heads were exposed to its line of sight. We ducked behind a group of boulders and began to whisper about what to do. The beast continued in our direction.

We were trapped. Any attempt to move from our current position would expose us fully and alert the aliens we were there. We would again become the prey instead of the predator. We chose instead to stay and fight.

I was positioned at the back to guard against the demon coming at us from behind. There was a narrow gap between two boulders and a high creek bank behind that, which would allow it to slip through. I was given the task of being the gatekeeper. With my bat at the ready, I was determined to fulfill my duties.

Bull and Allie took position near the front. If the alien were to walk past our location and then turn toward us, they would be waiting to stop it with a barrage of lead. Susi took up the middle with her .22. After quietly staking out our defense, we waited for the demon to arrive.

Minutes passed with no sign of our enemy. We dared not try to take a look, as it would risk our discovery. For me, patience was a thing not easily practiced when the stakes were so high. My nervousness again returned with a vengeance.

Three additional minutes, a time that seemed like an eternity of anxious waiting, passed before the whereabouts of the demon were revealed. It had come to a position above us on the creek bank, moving almost silently along on its three spindly legs. We remained frozen in our stances as the alien machine walked by just above us.

As luck was once again with us, we had not been seen. The demon was looking forward as it walked along the creek. We were thankful we had not been seen. After another five minutes of silent waiting, the beast was gone from our view. We turned and hurried across the creek and began our climb up the ridge on the other side.

As we approached the summit we stopped, knelt down, and began to crawl. There was plenty of cover to hide behind on our ridge, but only Bull and I went far enough to see the demon encampment from the top. From what we were able to see through the binocs, they had been busy.

There were animal parts strewn about, having been dissected and studied. And we were able to identify the poacher they had captured as being the one named Scott; he was bound to a tree. We knew him to still be alive, as we could see the occasionally movement of his head.

As we continued to scan the alien camp, disappointment set in as we realized that Kyle was nowhere to be seen. Perhaps he had just fallen into Rancheria Creek and had then been swept downstream. Perhaps his body had been jammed under a log or a rock by heavy currents. But until such time as we had evidence of his demise, we would not be giving up.

We observed the camp and wondered why the demons had butchered the animals and not the human. We pondered that question for most of the day as we sat gathering intel for a potential future raid. Our binocs continued to serve us well.

From what we could tell, the demons were busy cutting up specimens of the animal remains as well as gathering rocks and plants. We guessed they were studying whatever they came across and were no doubt cataloging it for return to whatever distant place they had come from.

Every so often one of them would take a load of items and disappear behind the far side of the ridge. We knew then we would have to get a look at whatever was there. I volunteered to take a journey to see the other side.

I would go down to Woods Creek and then follow it down to Crane Creek and finally to Jawbone Creek, around to the back side of the demons' ridge. It was a two-mile hike through sometimes steep terrain with many elevation changes. Only one of us needed to go, and I preferred that someone be me. It would leave my sister protected by Bull and Allie.

We had not had a meal since the bear feast at noontime the day before. With our morning hike, I had worked up a significant hunger, but our dry goods had been fully exhausted. Bull offered up one of his poles so I could attempt to fish along the creeks as I went.

I soon departed. I contemplated my encounter with the demon from the night before as I walked. I thought if I was one of them, and if I knew what I had done to one of their kin, I would be ready for a bit of retribution. A human for a demon, so to speak. And I would not have mercy on me either. Those were the things I thought of as I walked. They were not productive, but they kept my mind busy and off the fact that I was becoming increasingly fatigued from the constant hiking and lack of food.

When I reached Crane Creek, I assembled the fly rod and began to fish as I walked along the creek's edge. It slowed my progress, but the chance of landing food outweighed any immediate need to get to the other side of the ridge. I still had a six hundred to eight hundred foot climb up the back side of the ridge waiting for me, and I would need all the energy I could get.

I was only five minutes into my casting when a big trout hit the fly. I had it out of the water and onto a rock in short order. As the trout flopped about, I picked up my bat and bashed it in the head to keep it from escaping. I was so proud of myself for having reeled in the big fish so quickly that it took a moment for me to realize I had nothing to cut it with. Bull and Allie had the hunting knives with them. My utensils consisted of a weak spoon, a tin cup, and a small pan.

I sat looking at the fish for several minutes, trying to determine what to do. I found myself feeling almost completely useless as a woodsman. I then reached down, picked up the trout, and attempted to take a bite out of its side. To my astonishment, with a bit of sideways tearing with my teeth, I actually came away with a good-sized piece of flesh.

At the same moment, I almost gagged because of the thought of eating the raw animal I had just killed. But after removing the skin I had torn off with the flesh, and pulling out most of the guts with my fingers, I found it was not such a bad meal after all. The fresh trout had a good texture and a somewhat neutral taste.

It took five minutes for me to eat most of the flesh from my catch. I did not dare go near the head, and I had gotten a bit nauseous when I came in contact with the guts. But the protein was just what I needed. After the short meal along with several minutes of rest, I found my energy beginning to return. I pondered that perhaps I would make a better woodsman than I had thought.

### Chapter 13

### _______________________

**A** s I continued my walk along the creek's edge, stepping from large stone to large stone, I glanced downstream. I hesitated for only a moment to admire the beauty the area had to offer. The pure blue sky, the fresh breeze, and the bright green foliage—it was all a sight to behold.

I then returned my focus to the mission at hand. As I began to hop to the next rock, I took note of a movement in front of me. It was a demon, and it was heading my way. I quickly looked to my sides and was dismayed there was no natural cover available for me to hide behind or duck under. I dropped to my belly and frantically continued my search as the beast moved in my direction.

As a last attempt at hiding from the alien machine, I slid off the back of the rock into the frigid mountain stream. The cold bit hard into my calves and then thighs as I sank into a deep pool. I was up to my head in the icy mountain water, tucked between two boulders, exposed only from above and from back whence I had come.

A minute of frigid terror passed before the demon was standing on the rock just over my head. It paused for a moment as it looked further up the creek, scouting for any intruders. I was only feet away from the cold, metallic underbelly of my nemesis. The sharp implements on its appendages told of my undoing should it only look down from its stance above me. I shivered quietly in the stream as the demon continued its scan.

In my fright, I managed to lose the grip of my bat. It bobbed to the surface in front of my face and was then pressed against the rock beside me. It was in plain view of the alien machine should it only take the effort to look down. The bat continued to float along the edge of the rock, pushed gently by the current in the deep pool. As it rounded the edge, it was swept into a fast current, which pushed it further down the stream.

The beast then hopped to the next stone and continued its patrol. The frigid water and the fear of becoming known began to take their toll as I shivered uncontrollably, my head shaking enough to make ripples in the otherwise calm pool that held me. I dared not move so long as the demon was still in sight.

As it moved further up the creek, I began to feel a sense of relief. I had not been discovered, I had not been taken captive, and I was not to be cut limb from limb. I had somehow stumbled into the only means of cover available to me, and I had managed to stay unseen. It seemed luck had been on my side.

The demon reached the rock on which I had caught and eaten the fish. That was when I noticed the large dent in it's top. It was the same demon I had smashed with my bat as it ran past me in the woods two nights before.

It stopped, looking diligently at the remains I had carelessly left in full view. It picked up the fish head and held it out before its eyes, guts dangling below it. After close study, as there were no signs of cuts by tools, only tearing by teeth, I could only reason it had come to the conclusion it was a natural kill. The beast then dropped the carcass in the water and continued on its way up the creek.

I had been lucky: lucky I had no knife to carve the fish, lucky my bat had not given me away, lucky I had remained undiscovered. When the demon was again out of sight, I moved over to the creek's edge and emerged from the cold stream that had hidden me. I retrieved my bat from a shallow current before returning to the rocks above. My journey would continue. Five minutes were spent in the heat of the sun in an attempt to bring my body temperature back to normal.

It took another hour of hiking down Jawbone Creek before I turned to head up the ridge. The path up offered woods for cover. I would have to move slowly to have the best chance of not being seen. As I climbed, I began to wonder if they had any type of automated sentry set up, or if there were any trip wires about. I had to watch each and every step. I then wondered if they had perhaps mined the area to protect themselves.

Each of the scenarios that ran through my mind were plausible. I reasoned if I had been in charge of the camp, I would have done whatever I could to protect my perimeter. But perhaps these machines were not equipped for warfare. They certainly had not shown us anything other than the throwing of a rock or the use of a knife. It would stand to reason to have only the minimum of armaments if your mission was only reconnaissance.

I had made it about a third of the way up the back side of the demon ridge when I came to a large gully. It would allow me to hike with better cover. The gully at the lower end was twenty feet across with eight-foot-high sides. It seemed erosion had done me a favor, as it looked like a steady incline without all the rocks to step over.

Since I was down in the gully, I would not have to worry about moving from tree to tree to keep myself hidden. It was a welcome relief after the previous twenty minutes of dodging and ducking. It was nice to step forward in a normal manner.

As I neared the top and what looked like a good exit point, I stepped onto a branch and immediately had a wire pop up that had tension on it. I had been using my bat as a walking stick of sorts, and it had lodged itself at one end of the branch and was preventing a trap from being sprung.

If I moved the bat or if I moved my foot, the branch would be free to trigger whatever surprise it held. I stood still for several minutes, looking for a way out of my predicament. The sides of the ravine were too steep to climb.

I cursed myself for being so lax and for eagerly walking right into the ravine; it was an obvious place for a trap. With my eyes I followed the wire uphill to a tree that was bent over, and from there over to what looked at first like general brush and a pile of branches.

Upon further study I could see there was a large pile of well rounded boulders stacked behind the brush. With the steep terrain, anyone who was unlucky enough to set off the trap would very likely be running for their life when the rocks came rolling down at them. I was positioned perfectly in their path.

If I moved my foot and sprang the trap, I would not be able to get out of the way, even by turning and running downhill. I was in need of a better plan. An idea began rolling around in the back of my head, but I immediately dismissed it as being a bit too simplistic and downright crazy.

After five long minutes of having no options present themselves, I came to the conclusion the crazy plan was the only one I had. So, I gently but firmly gripped the wire and then picked up my other foot and set it down on the branch on the opposite side.

I lifted my bat and the trap sprang fully. To my amazement, the plan seemed to be working. I was vaulted up into the air, riding on the branch connected to the wire. I went up and to the right of the coming avalanche of heavy boulders.

For a brief moment in my mind I began to celebrate as I was lifted out of danger by the demons' trap itself. That celebration came to an abrupt end when the wire slacked and I realized I was fifteen feet in the air. And I was fast heading toward the tree the wire was attached to.

I began to helplessly flail my arms and legs in an attempt to get control, but there was none to be had. I slammed hard into the tree, knocking the breath out of me. I then fell backward down onto the hard ground and landed awkwardly on my already broken hand.

The numbness I had experienced a few days before quickly returned as I rolled downhill for thirty feet before coming to a stop in a clump of brush. I looked down at my hand, and this time I could see the broken bone trying to poke through the skin.

The rocks continued to rumble on their way down the hill, and I was certain the demons would be upon me in no time. I could not move after having had my breath knocked out, so I just lay on my side, looking at my broken hand while awaiting my inevitable capture.

After fifteen minutes with no sign of the demons, I once again had my composure back. I was gazing at my hand as it swelled. I had broken an arm when I was twelve and had watched as the doctor tricked me into sitting still while he set it. Allie had done the same when my hand had broken earlier. This time there were no tricks, and I would have to set it myself.

I placed my hand palm down on a rounded stone and then quickly pulled at my finger joint. The pain was intense, but to my amazement the bone went right into place. I took a few items from my pack and made a makeshift splint, replacing the broken one that Allie had made. I took care to fully secure it before attempting to move on.

As I glanced further up the ridge, I decided the demons had not been alerted by the springing of their trap. My mind once again settled in on Kyle. For the first time, I came to the realization that if they did have him, perhaps they were not intent on killing him. They were instead going to take him off world for further study, the same fate that appeared to plague the poacher named Scott.

I took another ten minutes to get my confidence back and then once again began my upward climb. My pace had been cautious before being caught in the trap and had slowed to a crawl after. With almost every step, I stopped and looked to check for the next wire. I was back to my previous method of moving from tree to tree to lower my chance of being discovered.

When I felt certain the area between trees was clear, I would move as quickly as I could to the next one. After forty-five minutes of dodging from tree to tree, I came upon an opening where the next tree line was a hundred feet away. The expanse was covered in foot-high grass and the occasional shrub, but offered no good place to hide.

I was getting very near the summit and would have to use extra caution to move about. The minimal cover was an unwelcome sight. I stood behind the last available tree, scanning the opening and the next woods in front of me.

I contemplated an all-out run, but it was uphill and I knew I would be out in the open for much longer than I wanted. So, I settled in on crawling the distance on my belly. Hiding behind the foot-high clumps of grass and small shrubs would have to do.

I removed my pack and did my best to stuff it behind a tree. I was close to the top, and the pack was now a hindrance. There was nothing inside I would need for my recon mission. I found myself wishing I had stashed it at the bottom of the hill by the creek before proceeding up.

I got down on my belly and began my journey up across the open expanse. I was halfway across when I spotted a demon walking just inside the tree line. I froze where I was with little to shield my position. But the demon seemed preoccupied and walked past, staying in the tree line and looking forward as it went.

I was astonished as it moved away from me. I could see it had a giant hole in the back of its body. It was the demon I had shot with Bull's .45! My excitement soon faded when I once again realized that even with that kind of damage, the machine was still moving around as if nothing had happened.

I lay in the grass for another minute, thinking about how difficult it would be for me to get another good swing at one with my bat. I then cursed myself for not having summoned Minhafa an hour before at the creek at the bottom of the hill.

My position was too exposed, so as soon as the demon was at a sufficient distance, I stood and hustled up to get to the tree line. I began dreading the thought of getting caught in another trap. I had no time to look for it as I ran, sighing with relief as I reached the trees without incident.

Once back in the wood, I took notice of another gully that had been largely filled in since it had long ago been created. It was well lined with heavy shrubs and a few trees, and it looked like an ideal spot to remain completely hidden if the need arose.

The gully went 150 feet through the woods and up into the next opening. That marked as close to the summit as I would be able to get. I made my way into the shrubs, careful to not leave any visible signs of a trail as I went.

When I reached the other end, I had a good vantage point for watching almost anything that happened on my side of the ridge. It was then I got my first look at the alien spacecraft that had carried the demons to our planet.

The ship was dome shaped on the bottom and was also supported by three legs, just like the demons. The legs each had three joints, and each joint was loaded with tools. It was a much larger replica of the scouts it carried.

The ship was thirty feet in diameter and sported the same flat top as its spawn. As I watched, I noticed a rotating band just under the top. Every fifteen seconds or so a pair of the same creepy, red eyes the demons had would rotate past.

I was looking for any doors or hatches or anything that looked like it could be used to load their bounty aboard. There were no discernible lines on the exterior of the craft; except for three dome-shaped cutouts on its underbelly, it was featureless.

From their positioning and spacing, I guessed there were five such cutouts, with two around the back of the craft where I could not see. On one side of the ship, there were stacks of what looked like animal parts, along with the other specimens we had seen being carried around the back side of the ridge earlier in the day.

Were they preparing to leave? Would they be taking Scott with them? And what about Kyle? I scanned the area. There was again no sign of Kyle. My heart sank as I thought about my friend not being there for the rescue and of how that news would affect the others.

An hour after my observation had begun, a demon brought Scott around and secured him to a tree beside the ship. It was evident he had been drugged as his head bobbed from side to side. It looked as if he had just downed his twentieth beer. There would be no chance of escape with the state he was in.

The demon walked to the ship, putting a leg up into one of the dome-shaped cutouts, followed by a second leg. When secured, it lifted its third leg and pulled itself up into the cutout. It was a perfect fit. The alarm bells then started going off in my head. The ship had five such cutouts. It carried five such demons. Were there two more walking around we had not yet seen?

This information was huge, and I would want to get it back to the others as soon as possible—that and the fact Kyle was not there. I dreaded being the deliverer of the bad news, but there was no alternative.

When the demon secured itself in the cutout, it was almost a seamless fit. The rim that once outlined the top of its body was now almost imperceptible on the bottom side of the demon ship.

The rotating eyes, which had stopped when the demon approached, were once again on the move, going around every fifteen seconds. With nothing more to see, I turned my gaze toward the animal parts and other gathered resources.

After scanning them, I stopped and focused my eyes on what looked like a human hand. A chill ran down my spine as I stared at what I thought might be part of the remains of Kyle. I was not certain of what I was seeing at the distance I was, but I could not venture closer to get a better look, not without the risk of getting caught. It was time to return to the others with what I knew.

As the ship's eyes rotated away, I slowly crept my way back through the brush. I waited a few minutes at the other end of my natural cover to make certain the damaged demon was not lurking about. I then stood and quickly moved from tree to tree until I once again reached the open area. This time, instead of belly crawling, I decided on an all-out run to get below. It was too steep of a downhill angle to move quickly. Half of the energy for each step was spent trying to slow myself down.

When I reached the other tree line, I stooped to get my pack. Once it was again secured, I moved at as fast a pace as I could control. The steep terrain along with the many tree roots and loads of pine straw made for a slippery and dangerous trek.

It had taken me more than two hours to get to the top of the summit, but only twenty minutes to come down. The sun was beginning to get low in the sky, and I did not want to be stuck out in the dark by myself. I continued moving at a hurried pace, as much as I was able.

I was soon back around to the ridge where the others lay. The hike up to our new camp was extremely tiring, as I had been hurrying to make it back before dark. The last glow of the already set sun was fading fast when I finally reached them.

I was out of breath and had to sit for a few minutes before I could speak. I told them Kyle was nowhere to be found, but I did see what I thought was a human hand. This of course, sent Susi into a sobbing depression.

I gave her a long hug and whispered to her that just because I had not seen him did not mean he was not still out there. It was all I had to offer. I then told of the mothership and the five cutouts. We were up against a formidable opponent and would have to plan accordingly.

### Chapter 14

### _______________________

**T** he girls had been fast at work during the day and had gathered quite the stockpile of wild strawberries, gooseberries, pine nuts, and a number of different tubers. All were edible, according to Bull and Allie, and while some were not the best tasting, they all went down good. It brought a bit of satisfaction to the immense hunger I had been feeling.

As I sat back with a moment to think, I was amazed how it was not too terribly difficult to live off the land if one knew what they were doing. I briefly thought about the local Indians who had done it for centuries before being run off by the new Californians just before the Civil War. I was so used to buying everything in a can, bag, or box, or from a butcher, that it had never occurred to me that nature offered quite the bounty. It was all-providing if you knew where to look and how to make use of it.

As I sat and ate, Allie continued to comfort Susi. I began to tell of my other findings. I told of the fact there had been five demons, even though we had only seen three. I told of the fact they were gathering material and stacking it near their ship. I told of the poacher Scott and how he had been bound to a tree and seemingly drugged.

I then told about the trap I had almost been caught in and about how we would have to be careful with any approach of the summit; there were bound to be other traps waiting. The alien machines were crafty, and we would have to watch our every step. We would also have to be wary on our hikes, as they were constantly on patrol.

Bull was emboldened to hear I had not spotted any weaponry on the mothership. It was only speculation on my part, as there was no reason to be displaying weapons if there was no imminent threat. But it gave us hope nonetheless.

With Kyle still missing, we considered leaving. We could always get the authorities to come back to rescue Scott. But Bull was adamant about freeing the human hostage. He was not going to leave his fellow man to the mercy of the mechanical beasts. It was a trait I had always admired in my friend: he would always stand up for what was right, even in the face of ultimate danger.

We talked for several hours, throwing out any idea that came to our minds. We finally came to a consensus that we first needed to reduce their numbers before considering an assault of any kind on the mothership; that was, if we would be able to get close to it at all without having it fly away.

Our initial plan was to try to lure the demons away from their camp one by one. I liked the boulder trap they had nearly gotten me with, but there was no way we could move enough of the large rocks by ourselves without the proper equipment. The demons certainly had strength on their side for setting up something like that.

We would need to be clever. And in order to lure them in, we would have to use ourselves as bait. I quickly volunteered as the piece of meat for whatever trap we came up with. After my day's recon adventure and our battle planning, I was charged with adrenaline.

But as Bull and Allie began to talk strategy with each other, my eyelids suddenly became like lead weights. The day's activity, with only the trout and berries to eat, had left my body weary. I decided I would just rest my eyes for a few minutes as the others talked. In half that time I was fast asleep. The night passed quickly.

We were all up at first light, discussing what we might do. I was somehow bursting with energy. Woods Creek was just below our encampment. Our ridge was not visible from the creek, and the creek was not visible from Woods Ridge... or by the demons. The terrain on either side of the creek moved steeply uphill and offered many places for an ambush.

It was decided I would lie in wait until only one demon was visible from up on the ridge. I would then try to draw its attention and lure it down along the creek. Bull, Allie, and Susi would be waiting with an ambush along the steepest section. They would have good cover and it would be difficult for the demon to reach them. The girls would each have a 9mm, Bull would have his .45, and I would be running for my life.

I hiked up and down the section of creek where we wanted the demon to give chase. I wanted to be as familiar with it as possible... and able to move as fast as I could when I needed, as the demons were agile. I would be running without my pack, which would be a big relief. After a week in the woods, my legs felt much stronger than when we had started our trek.

I had a surprising amount of energy given the fact I had hardly eaten for several days. I was all pumped up and ready to take out another alien invader, with only my bat if need be. As a precaution, I made my way to a pool in the creek, knelt down, and made my call to Minhafa. Again, I was after any advantage I could gain.

It was mid-morning by the time we decided to set the trap. I made my way to the base of the creek, just out of sight of the demon camp, still almost a thousand feet away. Allie and Susi got themselves into position to get their best angle of attack. They would be well protected if the demon began another rock-throwing barrage.

Bull had his spot picked out and had moved around on the ridge. He was scanning the demon camp for the lone demon. Two had been moving about all morning, and one had just gone around the ridge toward the mothership.

Always the prepared outdoorsman, Bull had a small signal mirror. He would use it to give me the go-ahead. Since Allie was also the prepared outdoorswoman, she had also packed a signal mirror. I was given her mirror to use to try to draw the demon's attention from as much of a distance as I could. With all the pieces of the plan in place and with the single demon visible on the ridge, Bull decided it was time to go. A set of bright flashes from his mirror set the plan in motion.

As I began moving into full view of the demon camp, I knew I was in for a wild ride. If anything were to go wrong, such as a slip and fall, or if any other mishap were to slow me down, I could easily be overtaken by the beast before reaching the others.

I got to within eight hundred feet before I began flashing the demon with the bright sunlight from a cloudless day. The demon was facing away from me when I began. It stopped doing whatever it was doing when it noticed the glow reflecting off the terrain around it.

The lone demon slowly turned its body around until the red eyes were facing directly at me. For almost a minute it just stood and stared as if daring me to come closer. Once I had its full attention, I began to jump up and down and swing my bat around in as cocky a manner as I could.

It then began to slowly move downhill in my direction. I turned and began to move away while still making as much of a commotion as I could. As the demon came toward me it began to pick up speed. At that moment I knew it was time to hustle down the creek.

I turned and ran back toward the cover I had left just moments before. I stopped and gave one last look back to make sure I was indeed being pursued. Our plans and my fears were both confirmed. I could see the demon was in a full run and was gaining on me fast.

I turned again and began the run for my life down along the creek, bounding from rock to rock and from open space to open space. I felt good about my lead and the fact I knew exactly where I was going.

But that feeling did not last as the first barrage of fist-sized rocks began to strike the terrain around me. Any of the projectiles coming from the demon could prove instantly deadly, or at best, could stop my progress cold.

I had nowhere to hide as I ran and jumped while moving down the creek. Distance and the fact I was naturally moving from side to side were my only defenses. The demon continued its run at full speed as it picked up and launched its missiles.

It was covering three times the ground I was, and it was gaining on me fast. With each step closer it got, the more accurate its throws became. I was beginning to believe I had cut it too close when our ambush area finally began coming into view.

One of the small rocks burst on a boulder as I was passing, showering me with painful bits of debris. Just one of those throws properly placed could spray me in the face with enough shrapnel to halt my run. I was within a hundred feet of the ambush when a rock brushed my side, leaving a small scrape on my ribs as it tore a hole in my shirt.

I began to bob and weave as much as possible while still trying to keep my balance and speed. My goal was to reach a large boulder, where I would be provided a moment's protection while the others opened fire. The last hundred feet seemed to take an eternity.

As I reached sixty feet, the demon decided to use my hiding place against me. It began to relentlessly target the side of the boulder as I approached. I would have to run directly through the frag of the shattering rocks in order to make it behind cover.

The rocks disintegrated one after another as I got closer to the boulder. As I raised my arms and bat to try to shield my face, I heard the first shots being fired. The last of the rocks hit and sprayed the ground before me just as I reached the boulder.

Our timing could not have been better. The girls and Bull had the demon caught in a crossfire as I hid behind my stone shield. The demon moved closer to their positions. They had the high ground, and it would have to fully expose itself to their fire to make any attempt at an assault.

After a few deep breaths, I peered around the boulder to see what was happening. The demon was fully in the water of the creek and keeping itself close to several large boulders, just under Bull's position.

Neither Bull nor the girls had a good shot at the demon where it was, but only if it stayed in that position. Its only attempt at an attack was to throw the occasional stone up in their direction. It was unable to achieve an accurate throw without exposing itself.

After a few minutes I began to wonder if we were just in a waiting game, with the other demons perhaps circling around to outflank us. I decided I would have to make a move to try to draw it out before we lost our advantage.

I stepped further behind the boulder and began to slowly climb up the steep sides of the creek's embankment. Susi had given me her .22, so I felt if I was able to get into a good position, I might be able to flush the demon out into the open... or to at least aggravate it.

The demon kept up its occasional throw toward Bull or the girls. Bull would throw back down a rock of his own just to let it know he was still there. With their limited amount of ammo, they had to shoot sparingly.

I was in full view of the demon for several minutes as I made my climb, but the demon was preoccupied with the others. It didn't notice my maneuver. I moved along the embankment's upper edge to a point directly across from our enemy. I would be able to pick away at it with Susi's .22 while maintaining cover behind a large tree.

I took careful aim and when I pulled the trigger, I was delighted to see a quarter-inch-sized hole pop open in the flat surface of the demon's top. It spun around to face me. It then let loose a rock that skimmed the same edge of the tree from where I had just fired a shot.

The mechanical beast bolted across the creek in an attempted full assault of my position. I did not have the extreme high banks for protection as they did on the other side, but the break in cover was all Bull, Allie, and Susi needed to cut loose with a deadly barrage from their weapons.

The demon jerked violently with each hit as it attempted to climb the terrain up to my position. It was only four feet from my tree when a round went through what must have been a critical part. The machine stopped its ascent and began to shudder and vibrate as its systems failed.

Bull and the girls stopped their firing, which gave me the opening to get in another home run swing. I rounded the tree, raised my bat, and came down as hard as I could on the flat section just above the demon's eyes. My swing was well placed, as the machine stopped all movement and then rolled backward down to the creek bed. I followed behind it, sliding down the embankment and landing hard on the rocks beside the downed menace.

I sprang to my feet and began to relentlessly bash the lifeless machine with my Hillerich & Bradsby S44. No amount of home runs could replace the feeling I got while smashing the guts out of the demonic mechanical beast. I had opened a wide hole in its underneath when I noticed the green canister inside. It began to leak out the same destructive green fog I had seen two nights before.

I stepped back and tripped over a rock in my attempt to get away just as the canister began to spray a heavy stream of the green fog upward. In my haste I had dropped my bat. I was reaching back for it when a giant hand grabbed my other arm and began to drag me away.

I gripped the precious wood with two fingers of my broken hand as Bull pulled me to safety. The green fog spread out, covering much of the creek bed and most of the embankment beside where the fallen demon lay. From seventy-five feet, we stood and watched as the remains seemed to evaporate into thin air, leaving no evidence it had ever existed. Nothing was left except for the telltale barren circle from the green mist.

We made our way back out of the Woods Creek ravine and back up onto our recon ridge as quickly as we could. We would begin the planning for our next trap. We would also have to fortify our recon position against a potential attack as we planned for our next move.

As we climbed up the back side of our ridge, we noticed a small opening in the rocks. When we investigated further, it turned out to be a small cave going back twenty-five feet into the hillside. It had a chamber area that could comfortably hold several, but not all of us. The smell of the cave was acrid, but not intolerable. No doubt there had been some animal that had used it as shelter in the past. The cave was also close to our lookout point from where we observed Woods Ridge. And the opening was too small for a demon to enter.

If need be, at least two of us could use it to keep the demons at bay. But it would only work for a short period of time, as we still required food and water to survive. Since the demons were machines, we surmised they would be able to sit outside and wait us out if they so desired.

Susi was given the task of observing the aliens while Bull, Allie, and me planned our defense. Previously, there were two demons moving about their base camp. With only one showing itself and with five likely to have existed, we would need to keep on the lookout for at least two more.

We stacked our heavy rock walls and cleared a few shrubs that would give us a better view back down the hill. We also stockpiled as many fist-sized rocks as we could, just in case we were left with no more ammo for our guns. Bull cut a dozen saplings with his hatchet and piled them up with the hope of making some crude arrows for his bow. With our immediate area somewhat secured and stockpiled, we left Susi to observe while we moved down to the creek. We needed to see if we could come up with more traps for the remaining demons.

We had been down at the creek for half an hour when Allie decided we should check on her friend. As we made our way back up toward the ridgetop, Bull put out his hand in that now-familiar stop gesture. As we listened, we could hear the occasional cracking sound of rock hitting rock.

It was Susi, and the demons were after her! She had turned and looked back down toward us and had spotted a demon heading our way. She then moved over to the cave entrance and picked up and threw one of the small rocks down at it.

When she had its attention, she darted into the cave opening and hid back in the chamber area. The demon had rushed up the hill and was now attempting to kill or disarm her by throwing rocks into her hiding place. The rocks would bounce around inside, but Susi's position kept her safe from being hit.

We approached as quietly as we could, and the demon's focus remained on Susi. Bull then aimed and fired his .45, winging the beast and spinning it around in the process. The alien scout then ducked behind our defensive wall as it evaluated its situation.

With the loud noise from Bull's cannon of a pistol, and with the fact no more rocks were coming into the cave, Susi decided it was time to make a move. She came back up to the cave opening directly behind the demon and opened fire with Kyle's 9mm, pumping round after round into the beast's body.

The demon sprang upward in an attempt to move out of her line of fire and was immediately met with a barrage from Bull and Allie. As more and more holes formed in the demon's body, it twisted from side to side. Bull and Allie had each emptied a full clip into the machine before it finally slumped over the rock wall we had constructed.

After a moment of silence, we all knew what was coming next. Bull yelled at Susi to get out of the cave. But... it was too late. The alien fogged the area with the green mist, leaving Susi with no choice but to move back into the underground chamber.

We then retreated downhill as the green fog came rolling after us. We turned and headed to our left until we were certain the fog had passed us by. As with each of the times before, we would have to wait ten or fifteen minutes for it to dissipate before we could return.

It was agonizing as the thought of my sister being slowly dissolved by the fog kept running through my head. Why had we left her alone? Why did we not try to lure it away so she could escape? As soon as I was able, I rushed back up the hill to the cave mouth and called out her name. I sighed with relief when she came out still complete, still breathing, and still my sister. She had defended herself well.

With the third demonic machine destroyed, it was time for us to pack up our camp and move, as we were certain the aliens now knew our location. With two of them still out there, we would need to keep our position unknown if we wanted to maintain one of our only advantages. So, we talked about where we might go as we gathered up our packs.

It was decided we would first move down to the position where I had been hiding at the beginnings of Woods Creek. It was where I had lured the second demon into our trap. We would make our way around Woods Ridge itself, looking for a new point for observation of the aliens.

As we hiked down the hill, I repeatedly looked back to make certain we were not being followed. We had survived another encounter with the demons, and we continued to come out on top. It was encouraging, but the engagements continued to take their physical toll on us. We had at least lived to fight another battle, and that was what war was all about. The demons might be faster and have more advanced technology, but we had our guts, guns, and brains. And so far, those had been enough to keep us in the fight.

### Chapter 15

### _______________________

**A** s we moved through the woods, I reminded Bull of the trap I had run into on the other side of the ridge during my attempt at recon. Had I not been lucky, I would have surely been crushed to death by the prearranged rock slide. We slowed our pace and began a thorough search as we moved along. If we could locate one of the demons' traps, perhaps we could figure out a way to use it against them. We were open to all possibilities.

The next large gully we came to was rigged. We had to go down into it and then up and out the other side to get to where we were heading. The trip wire was well camouflaged, but we knew what we were looking for and found it in time to prevent its trigger.

We would have to make use of our ropes, as the sides of the gully were too deep to simply climb into and out of. It was similar to the other gully, which made it the perfect spot for the rock-slide trap. There would be no way out once the trap was sprung. You could not outrun the big, round boulders in the rough, steep terrain.

Once in the gully, Bull retrieved the rope we had climbed down with and set about rigging it so we could climb out the other side. We carefully stepped over the wire one by one and then each made our climb out. I struggled with my broken hand, but was able to make the edge with a heavy pull from my friend.

After another hundred yards, we were due southeast of the Woods Ridge summit and approaching a smaller ridge that was again only a hundred feet below it in elevation. It was also heavily wooded, offering good cover.

We dropped our packs and again planned out and implemented our defense. Our position was just under a thousand feet from the bulk of the alien base. From the new point we could just see the edge of the mothership. It was protected on two sides by large, rocky outcroppings and partially nestled under some large trees that kept it hidden from above.

As the others began stacking up a new defensive rock wall, I made my way back to the gully. I sat for several minutes working out a strategy for how I might use the gully against them. I reasoned if I could lure one in by the rock pile, I might be able to set the trap off from further down.

As I thought about it, my mind wandered back to when Bull and I were teens. At one point he had been interested in joining the army during WWII. At the time, I had decided I would be joining with him... if the Army would have me. We had set up a fairly decent obstacle course to train, so if we did get called into service, we would hopefully be in decent shape.

One of my contributions to the course had been a rope tied to a thick tree branch next to a steep bank. You would have to run full speed at the rope. If you came in at the proper angle, grabbed it, and then contorted your body just right, you would swing around the tree and up and onto the top of the bank.

Bull had quickly mastered the skill, but my best showing had been to grab a root protruding from the top of the bank and then to pull myself up the rest of the way. My usual attempt left me just short, where I would slam into the side of the bank and slide back down. It had been just one more thing I had blamed on my height disadvantage.

With the rope swing being my only idea, I decided to set it up as close to what I had done so many years before. If I had to use it, I hoped maybe my increased weight and a downhill run would be the trick needed to propel me up and out of the deep gully. It was all I had, but at least it was something.

I found a good, stable tree that would offer a similar setup. After rigging my escape rope, I made my way back to the others. I immediately told Bull of my idea. He gave me one of those looks with a half smile and his head cocked to one side. I was certain the picture in his head was of me slamming into the bank and then sliding back down just before being crushed by the rolling boulders. I brushed off his skeptical look, as the image in my own mind had been one of a narrow but heroic escape.

With our defensive position once again set up, we turned our observance back toward the alien base. Through the remainder of the afternoon, we had only seen the one damaged demon and the mothership. We wondered if there was still another one lurking about looking for us. All we could do was guess.

As the sun began to once again set, we talked about how we might take on the remaining enemies. "Divide and conquer" was still our best strategy. But we needed to know where the other demon was, if it existed at all.

The damaged demon had continued its routine of processing samples and then carrying them around and stacking them beside the mothership. There was not much left in the pile of animal bones and other items around the front side of the camp. It made us wonder if the information-gathering mission was coming to an end. We would have to make our final move before they made an attempt at a getaway. We stayed up most of the night going over what we might do.

It was decided that Bull, Allie, and Susi would lie in wait around the east side of the ridge for the damaged demon while I took up position in my previous recon spot among the shrubs, just below the mothership. It would be my job to distract the mothership, if need be, once their gun battle with the damaged demon began.

If the mothership made a move, I was to make it aware of my position and then run. With luck, we would be able to once again reduce their numbers by taking out the damaged demon. If successful, we would then make plans for our assault on the mothership itself.

The one thing haunting us was the prospect that one other demon was likely still out there and unaccounted for. Where was it? What might it be doing? Was it observing us at that moment? We had no way of knowing. All we could do was to move forward with our best assumptions about each of those questions.

At first light we once again broke camp, with Bull, Allie, and Susi working their way northeast while I went in a roundabout northwesterly direction. It took me forty-five minutes to get into position. The mothership was still in its previous routine, with the rotating eyes coming around every fifteen seconds.

Scott was tied to the same tree, although he looked to be unconscious. I didn't see either of the demons moving about, so I guessed the damaged one was probably on the other side of the ridge. I watched for fifteen minutes, ducking my head back down every fifteen seconds for the first few minutes before finally deciding on just sitting and listening for the beginning of the action.

I had taken Bull's binoculars and had used them to get a better look at the supposed severed hand. I was elated to discover that whatever flesh it was, it was not human. It meant Kyle might still be out there somewhere, and he might just be alive. It was a good feeling to once again have hope.

As I continued my observance of the mothership, I next heard a small buzzing sound and poked my head up just enough to see what was happening. The mothership had stopped rotating its eyes. They were now fixated on the damaged demon standing before it. A moment later, a second demon emerged from behind the mothership as it released itself from its dome-shaped cutout.

The second demon looked very different. It had a red body and protrusions coming from its top that had the appearance of multiple short antennas. I could only guess it was some sort of communications array. And I was not liking the ominous red color.

I wanted to alert the others, but I had no way to do so. What if both demons made their way around to the other side and the others were discovered? If they were captured or killed, the only avenue left open to me would be to try to make it over to the Cherry Lake dam and to alert the world.

What if the demons decided to leave while I was gone, and what if they took my friends and family with them? My blood pressure began to spike as the two demons turned and began walking toward the others.

I was just about to spring up and give away my position by firing Susi's .22 when the red one stopped and turned in front of Scott. As the damaged demon continued its walk, the red demon began to poke and prod Scott in an effort to wake him, or to check that he was still living; I could not be certain of which.

As Scott's head began to bob around and his face winced, the red demon turned and proceeded to walk back past the mothership and along the ridge in the other direction. This was the turn of events we needed. With any luck, the others would be waiting and would get the drop on the damaged demon, once again cutting down their numbers.

As I watched, the mothership begin to rotate its eyes, the damaged demon disappeared around the ridge to my right. The red demon then disappeared around the ridge to my left. My remaining task was to wait for the gunfire to begin.

While I stayed down in my brushy hideaway awaiting our attack, I noticed something moving in the rocks just above the ship. I only got a quick glimpse of it, so I was unsure of what I had seen. Was there a third demon? Were we still way outnumbered?

My growing dread turned into pure excitement when I saw two human figures running up the hill behind the mothership. It was Craig and Kyle! Kyle was alive! In my elated state, I poked my head up just in time for the mothership's eyes to stop rotating and focus directly on me. I was had. At that same moment, the sound of gunfire could be heard from the other side of the ridge. The assault had begun!

The demon mothership then began to stand fully up, which gave it a height of fifteen feet. It was much larger than its demon offspring, and my bat would only be able to reach its legs, if I had to fight.

It lifted one leg slowly in my direction. This was the first time I had seen it move, and a chill suddenly went down my spine. I realized this thing could be just as quick and agile as the smaller ones. And it could possibly fly...

At that same moment, a thunderous explosion went off just behind the ship. The large boulders that had once been its protectors suddenly became its captor. One of the boulders slid down, pinning two of its legs to the ground. The metallic ship was thrown hard onto its side.

The blast also sent a concussion wave in my direction, knocking me backwards onto the ground. I lay there stunned for several seconds before the fog began to clear from my head. Somehow Kyle and Craig had gotten hold of dynamite and had managed to use it against our biggest foe.

As the mothership struggled to free itself, both Kyle and Craig ran back down the hill to set Scott free. Luckily, Scott had been tied to a large tree facing away from the blast. Once the two attackers had Scott loose, they began to make their way east around the ridge toward the others. They were just moving out of view when the red demon came sprinting back toward the mothership.

I turned and ran back down through the brush gully I was in and began to make my way back around to our new camp. I had not heard any further gunfire, so I was hoping the others were successful in their assault. If so, we now had everyone free, and we could get out and let the proper authorities handle the rest.

I felt proud of our accomplishments as I ran through the woods toward our camp. We were heroes. All of us. And the world was going to know of our battles and our victory over these intruders.

As I made my way into camp, I heard more gunfire and immediately pulled Bull's binoculars out to look for the others. They should have been coming back toward me. Instead, what I saw was Bull and Susi lying on their backs and Allie crouched behind a tree with her 9mm. I saw her reach around the tree and fire off a round. The sound was heard a second or so later.

This new demon had a weapon the others did not have. I could see a wave go out from it that slightly distorted the air. When it reached the tree that Allie was behind, it would blow bits of bark from its trunk. The battle lasted less than a minute as Allie was knocked backward onto the ground, just like the others. The red demon immediately moved over to her and sprayed out a red mist.

I then scanned the ridge heading back around toward the mothership. Once again I got that feeling of dread when I came across Kyle, Craig, and Scott also lying on the ground motionless. I had no way of knowing if they were dead or only unconscious. I wondered if perhaps the red mist was what had been used to drug Scott.

I moved my gaze over to the mothership. I could see that with its one free leg it was busy chipping away at the boulder that pinned it down. It was not out of the question that if it were able to get free, it could then repair itself. It could still leave with all its treasure... including my family and friends.

As I moved the binoculars back toward the others, I was stunned. The red demon had picked up Allie and Susi and was walking with them toward the mothership. Instead of having the normal panic arise in me, a great anger was welling up. I was not going to sit idly by while my friends and family were abducted. Not this day.

So, I put into play the only plan I had. I pulled out the signal mirror of Allie's I still carried. I began to flash the red demon with it from my position on the lower ridge. Several flashes later, my efforts were rewarded. The demon stopped, looked at the reflected brightness around it, and then turned its red, devil eyes slowly toward me.

The red demon stood still for almost a minute, evaluating its situation. It then carefully set Allie and Susi on the ground and turned fully toward me. I continued to signal away at the mechanical devil until it began running at me in a full sprint.

I had a hundred yards to cover to get to the gully and the rope I had prepared. It was a straight shot and slightly downhill. My timing would have to be perfect, if I was to lure the red beast into its own trap. It was my only alternative, as my armaments were Susi's peashooter .22 and my trusty bat, neither of which was worthy of going up against the red demon without the element of surprise.

I gripped my bat tightly in one hand while I continued to signal with the other until my nerves said it was time to go. I ran like I had never run before, and I reached the top of the gully just as the red demon topped the ridge into our camp. This time I just waved my bat and shouted obscenities.

The demon once again began its full pursuit of me. I slid down into the gully, ever mindful of the trip wire, and began my run down through it. The demon closed fast and was about to enter the gully after me just as I was approaching the rope.

I reached my bat down and banged on the wire, setting the trap in motion just as the red-devil entered the ravine behind me. The rocks tumbled in after it with gravity now being my friend. I reached the rope in full stride and clinched it with both hands while still attempting to hold my bat.

I could not get a firm grip on the rope with the bat and my broken hand. My grip slid down the rope as I attempted to secure my hold. I had tied a knot in the end, and when my hands had slipped to that point of no return, my grip on the rope held. I was propelled upwards and to the right in the most beautiful arc I could have ever imagined.

My speed and my angle were perfect as I swung up and exactly onto the top edge of the gully bank fifteen feet above. As I landed, I turned to look at my pursuer just in time to see that the rocks were not gaining on it fast enough. It was going to outrun the avalanche and come out the other end of the gully unscathed.

It glanced up at my position just as it approached, and I got the feeling that if it could have smiled at me, it would have. The thing was too fast, and the trap was going to fail. Without thinking, I spun around and heaved my bat directly at it as a last gesture of defiance.
Chapter 16

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**T** he world went into slow motion as my bat turned end over end, heading right at the red demon. For an instant, my panic returned as the bat came in too low. But low was just what I had needed. The bat struck just in front of the demon and bounced perfectly up into its leg that was just about to touch the ground.

The demon lost balance as the tip of one of its other legs skidded just up under a large root. Fast motion once again returned as the demon shuddered and fell hard-forward into the gully. The fast-rolling boulders quickly overtook the fallen machine and began a relentless bashing of its body.

The spindly legs were the first to go, followed quickly by the half moon body and then followed quickly again by the inevitable green fog. This time I was uphill from the demon and had a prime viewing angle of its entire demise. I squatted as I watched the red devil melt away into nothingness. Once again that feeling of great pride overwhelmed me.

When the fog had dissipated, I climbed down into the gully to retrieve my precious Hillerich & Bradsby S44 from further up the ravine. This time I was saddened, as the rush of boulders had taken a large chip out of the knob on the handle end of the bat.

My thoughts then turned quickly to the others, as they were still in need of rescue. The mothership's attempt at freeing itself also needed to be stopped. I reached the summit of our camp and once again donned the binoculars.

A smirk shone on my face as I saw the ship was still chipping away at its granite captor. I headed toward the mothership at my fastest pace with the intent of ending its attempted escape. I hoped to once again make mankind the dominant species on Woods Ridge, and on all of Earth itself.

After my thousand-foot run, I arrived at the ship mostly out of breath. I slowed to a walk. If the ship could have seen me, it would have seen I had a determined look on my face, and a very ill will.

The ship had continued its chipping and managed to have its second leg almost free. It was lying on its side with the flat top facing toward me. The one free leg was endlessly pecking away at the boulder that held it. The ship could not see me with its eyes, but it knew I was there.

I had to stay at enough of a distance and at such an angle that it would have difficulty flinging rocks at me. It was still deadly, but without seeing me its aim would not have any accuracy.

As I thought about how I might permanently disable the beast, I stood behind a tree. I picked up a small rock and tossed it at the demon ship. The rock hit the top with a metallic thud. Just as I had anticipated, the demon's arm came whipping over its top while flipping around a knife-like blade. But there was nothing there for it to cut.

Next, it tried to grab a rock to throw, but its pincers were evidently damaged. The rock came loose, flying straight up into the air as it attempted its fling. That event gave me just the break I was looking for, as it showed I could approach it with near impunity.

Short of me getting within three feet of the ship, it had no other defense against me. It was my time to shine and to put an end to its mission. I threw several more rocks at it as hard as I could. Other than making small dents, they didn't have enough velocity to do any real damage. I next picked up a stone the size of a bowling ball and ran toward it, heaving the stone at the flat top.

The larger stone made a bigger dent and drew the arm back around to take a blind slice at me. I was well out of its reach, but I was still not doing enough damage, as it immediately went back to its chipping away. I pulled out Susi's .22 and emptied the rest of the clip into top. The result was five quarter-inch-sized holes that did nothing to slow its relentless attempt to free itself.

Since the mothership was unable to defend itself by throwing rocks, I walked around and climbed up onto the boulder that it was desperately trying to release itself from. It tried to reach me with its blade, but I stayed just out of its range.

I once again picked up a grapefruit-sized stone, and this time I heaved it at the point where the free leg attached to the body. The stone again made a small dent, but this time it had an added benefit. It reduced the range of motion the leg had available to it.

Using my rocket of a throwing arm, I picked up and heaved another and then another large stone at the leg's mounting point. Each hit reduced its mobility a bit further.

The ship was now having difficulty getting an effective swing at its captor boulder. I moved back around to face the top and tossed a small stone at it to retest the leg's range. It flipped the leg with the knife blade over the top, but this time it stopped short of coming around fully.

I now had free range to swing away at the top of the mechanical invader without the danger of retaliation. I made several large dents as I swung away at the flat surface. I watched as the free leg spun up in my direction repeatedly, trying to get at me.

On its third swing I had the timing down, and I took a swing of my own back at the leg. My trusty bat once again hit a home run as the tools at the end of the leg were mangled beyond usefulness. On my next swing I took out the mobility of the first joint, shortening the leg to only two sections.

I stepped closer with the next swing, taking out the second joint. The ship then stopped flipping its stump of a leg around. I stepped up and brought the hammer down on the final joint, bending it over and making it unable to move more than an inch.

As a last attempt at saving itself, the ship began to rock back and forth violently, using its trapped legs as leverage. I stepped around to the other side and brought my bat down hard on one of the remaining joints. A crunching sound could be heard as the second leg went silent, leaving the ship with only one last pinned leg having any movement.

The mothership continued its attempt to rock, so I brought back the bat and hit what I thought would be the game winning run. I broke the final leg clean in two. The alien vessel then rolled upside down onto its top. It was now free from its captor, but it had no appendages with which to right itself.

The eye ring then spun around until the eyes were facing me. As I stared into their evil red glow, the ship began to vibrate. I was certain at that moment I was about to get fogged. I turned and ran fifty feet away before looking back to watch. If need be, I would move even farther once the green fog began to disperse.

The pride once again welled up in me, as the battle was finally over. I could now go and check on the others to see if they were OK. But I could not leave until I saw the mothership disintegrating. I stood and watched patiently for a fog that never came. I was tempted to go back for another swing, but I thought it might be trying to lure me in and fog me along with itself. I stood frozen in my indecision. The ship's vibration soon turned into a smooth hum.

I was then in shock as the thirty-foot-diameter half-domed machine began to slowly lift off the ground. I had not thought at all about its ability to fly! As the ship reached a foot and then two feet, I ran at it with my bat raised, bringing down what I hoped would be a final blow directly to its eyes. I knocked out one, but the ship continued to lift slowly upward.

At four feet I took another swing, this time only denting the outside edge. I began to panic as the ship was getting away and I had no way to stop it. I took another wild swing and then another, each time only denting the outer edge as it moved ever higher.

As the ship lifted to eight and then nine feet, I could no longer reach it. The demon invader had kept one last ace up its sleeve and was now about to leave the game with at least a tie hand. It turned its last good eye down toward me as it continued slowly upwards. I let out a loud yell of rage at the beast and called for it to come back and fight.

But this was a machine. It had no pride to overrule its programming. I dropped to my knees and watched in horror as the ship continued to slowly climb. The hum became more and more uniform with harmonics. I feared my prize was getting away.

Just as I had given in to the fact that it was escaping, I was shaken by a multitude of gunshots coming from behind me. It was Bull, Allie, Kyle, and the poachers. They were emptying everything they had into the slowly rising craft. Susi, no longer in possession of her .22, stood behind and watched. The poachers each had rifles that packed a good punch, and my cohorts were all firing what ammunition they had remaining from their handguns.

I was overjoyed to see my sister and my friends seemed to be OK and they were making one last attempt to bring the ship down. Hole after hole opened up in the mothership as the team moved ever closer with their deadly accurate fire.

The demon ship then began to wobble. I looked up in excitement only to suddenly realized I was directly beneath it. As the wobbles grew, the others changed clips and continued their relentless barrage. Bull ran out of .45 slugs and turned to his Kodiak bow and his final two arrows. He pulled back the bow and fired the first arrow, but the ship's wobble made the arrow skim off the surface and into the air beyond. He pulled out his second arrow and walked up under the ship, now thirty feet in the air.

He pulled back on the bow, aimed for directly under the remaining eye, and let loose his final arrow. The hum immediately stopped as the arrow entered the ship's hull and impacted something substantial. I reached out and grabbed Bull's arm, pulling him backward as the ship dropped straight down.

It landed with a metallic thud and crunching sound on the rocks that had previously held it down. Bull and I had both fallen backward, just missing being crushed by the fallen alien craft.

I then grabbed his arm once again and told him to get moving as the fog would be coming. When we reached forty feet away, the green mist began to spray into the air around the mothership. This time however, the cloud was much larger and was spreading faster than with the smaller demons.

We continued to run, moving back to almost two hundred feet before reaching safety. We all watched as the alien craft quickly disintegrated in the green mist. A great sense of relief came over me as I looked around at the others as they watched.

We had defeated the invaders. Our war was over. And although we might be bruised, tired, and hungry, we were all still alive. Our harrowing ordeal, at least for the time being... was over.

### Chapter 17

### _______________________

**T** he seven of us sat quietly for twenty minutes, looking at the area where the alien craft had once been. The green fog had faded, leaving no trace of the once-thirty-foot-diameter ship. I was the first to stand and to walk toward the barren circle that remained. The vegetation around the edge was wilting from being in contact with whatever the green fog was.

I looked back. Bull, Allie, and the two poachers were getting up to follow me. Kyle and Susi stayed behind and remained in a long embrace; it would be difficult for them to leave each other's side for the remainder of their lives. I had a good feeling there would be no more arguments coming from either one.

I walked up to where the ship had crashed down and looked around for any evidence it had ever landed. There was none. The ground was clean. Gone were the spindly legs that had been separated and gone were the bits and pieces I had pummeled with my bat. Other than the disheveled boulder from the dynamite explosion, all signs of existence of the mothership were gone.

I turned to Bull and told him I thought we should search all of our battle areas for any evidence we could find. After all, it would be difficult to persuade anyone outside our group that we had encountered aliens at all, especially if we had nothing to show for it. The people around Roswell, New Mexico, had already experienced that.

We scoured the area around the mothership, but came up empty. Every rock was flipped, every shrub checked under. Even the stacks of samples the alien machines had gathered were gone in the mist.

Craig and Scott soon decided they just wanted to leave. Without evidence, they did not want to be associated with any alien-sighting claims. And they didn't want to be caught up in any poaching investigations. They had families to feed back at their homes. So they left when it became clear there was nothing left to be found.

The rest of us made our way around to where they had destroyed the damaged demon and again scoured the area, looking for any remains. Other than a bare spot on the ground where it had spread its fog, there was no sign anything had been there.

The small, triangular tracks the demons left were not something that would be lasting. It could also be argued they were man made and our whole story was nothing but a hoax. We needed something physical to show the world we were not just some glory hounds who were out looking for fame. The world had more than enough of those.

As we walked, I told the others of how I had lured the red demon into its own trap and had triumphed over it with a lucky throw of my bat. I then told of how I had been watching as Kyle and Craig blew the large boulder over onto the mothership, pinning it underneath and knocking me backward. And finally, I told of my struggle to disable the mothership: how even though it was taking a lot longer than I wanted, it was such an adrenaline rush to be pounding on it with impunity.

Bull was sporting a continuous half-grin as I relayed my encounters. He was proud of his friend and relieved everyone was safe. The others joined in their praise.

I told of how much I was in disbelief when the mothership lifted off and moved to just out of range of my bat. I told them they were being gathered up and taken to the ship when I began signaling the red demon. They had later awakened one by one as the mist from the red demon had worn off.

We again looked over the area around where the damaged demon had been defeated, and once again came up with nothing. With no evidence to gather, we made our way back toward our packs. Kyle then told us of his encounter with the bear and how he had slid down over the ledge to a spot just out of its reach. He said he knew something had come up and surprised the bear, but he had no idea of what it was. All he knew was the bear was losing badly and it was not because of us.

When the bear carcass fell over the ledge and knocked him off, he thought it was all over. He had clung to the largest part of the bear as he fell down into Rancheria Creek. He could only imagine he had survived the drop because he landed in about five feet of water while still clinging to the dead beast.

Landing on the carcass and in the water had been just enough to keep him from death, but it had given him a severe concussion. He had floated down into a shallower section of the creek and come to rest against a rock with his head out of the water.

He remembered getting up and walking. He had moved back up the creek, but he had no idea how far he had gone or why he had gone in that direction. Craig had found him wandering around not really knowing where he was or where he had been.

After we had let Craig and Scott go, they had a run-in with one of the demons, with Craig barely managing to escape. Scott had been captured. Craig had no idea of how to combat the demons on his own, so he was headed back toward help when he came across the wandering Kyle.

Kyle said they had talked for several hours before deciding to come back after the others. Craig had a stick of dynamite in his pack he would use for fishing while they were out poaching. He said it was much easier than carrying a fishing pole and standing around waiting for them to bite. You would light the fuse, toss it into deep water, and wait for the fish to float to the top. He called it mountain-man fishing.

Kyle and Craig had tracked the demon back to its camp, but had arrived a day after our last gunfight, so they had no idea we were even around. They reasoned we had probably gone back to get help from outside the park.

They had hatched their dynamite plan while waiting in the trees after they had discovered the mothership. It was hoped the blast would lift the boulder up higher, allowing it to drop onto the alien craft, fully destroying it. The red demon had almost caught them in the open when they were trying to work their way around behind the ship.

When it turned out to just be pinned, they decided to grab Scott and run. I had not seen the red demon continuing on past the mothership when I was headed back to our camp, so I had no idea they would be needing a warning. I was hoping we would all be able to leave or at least all make an assault on the mothership and the last demon together.

I told them when I looked through the binoculars and saw the red demon had knocked them down, I somehow instantly knew what to do with my rope-swing plan. I told of how I had swung around and up onto the gully ledge just perfectly, even while clutching my bat with a broken hand.

When we returned to camp we collected our things, and I took them over to the gully and once again told of my victory over the red demon. When I looked back on the week's events later, I thought about how lucky we had been at so many different turns and about how the whole thing could have gone very badly for us from the beginning.

After rising to my own heroic level, I no longer attributed any merit to the Minhafa story. I was convinced it was just dumb luck it had leaped to my defense when I had destroyed the first demon. It was more likely the demon was interrupting the lion's dinner plans than the mountain lion had come to my rescue. I finally reasoned since it had not shown up during any of the other battles, it was not watching over me; there was no animal spirit guide, only my imagination.

After exploring the gully and finding nothing, we made our way back to the two previous battle sites to explore. We once again came up empty handed. The green fog strategy was thorough and left nothing behind.

We sat at the last site along Cherry Creek as the sun was setting. We would have to camp out for one more night before making it back to civilization. The danger of an alien attack was over, of that we were certain. We would finally rest for the night in peace.

We gathered wood to light a fire, and Bull managed several trout from the creek. After eating, Bull and Allie went for a short walk, as did Kyle and Susi. It was the first time they were able to have time to themselves since Kyle had gone missing, and I was no longer in fear of being alone.

They all returned after a short while. We bedded down for the night, completely exhausted. The red tarps were once again over our heads to keep us dry from the morning dew. We slept in silence, and our sleep was deep and well deserved.

The sun was coming up over the first ridge before anyone stirred the following morning. It was a two-hour hike up the creek to the Cherry Lake dam, where we hoped we would find a telephone. Bull would call his Sacramento friend and arrange to have us all picked up, as no one was interested in hiking the rest of the way out. I was excited with the thought of telling the world of our encounters and triumph, and especially of my own heroics.

As we walked along, I began discussing with Bull about which stories we would tell first. Certainly my luring the red demon into one of its own traps was a highlight. The crowds would be wowed by my heroics on that one. I chatted endlessly as we walked.

As I talked, Bull would just occasionally nod, and the others remained largely silent. All the glory that was to be was swirling endlessly around in my head. We were just approaching the dam when Bull put out his hand. He turned slowly and sighed.

He told me they had all discussed the topic of telling the world. With no evidence to speak of, they had all come to the conclusion it would be best to just remain silent. They just wanted to return to their lives and to forget it had ever happened.

If the aliens came again, it would be the Army's problem, not theirs. They would volunteer to help at that time if needed, but until and unless that time came... they just wanted to go back to their homes and their lives. They wanted to move on.

I threw my hands up and clasped my fingers behind my head in a show of disbelief as my jaw dropped. This was such a huge moment in time for each of us, and for all mankind. I begged and pleaded with them to support me in telling our tale. I questioned how they could not.

But one by one they shook their heads no. I was about to come apart. How could I tell anyone anything without them backing me, without looking the fool? We all hiked quietly for the last half hour up to the top of the ridge.

Bull was able to persuade the operators at the dam to let us make a call to Sacramento. Within an hour the outfitter had rides heading our way. Our adventure was over. Bull told him that while the trip was a great idea on the surface, there were just too many things that could go wrong.

After a few close calls, it was decided he did not want to take anyone who may not be fully prepared on such a rugged journey. Bull promised to come back out in a few months to give him a full briefing and to discuss other possible joint ventures. I knew then that the Yosemite Sportsman Adventure Package would never be sold.

Several hours later, two cars arrived. It was a long ride back to Sacramento with my arms crossed and a scowl on my face. The driver kept trying to ask questions just to make conversation, but all he got in response were short answers. After the first twenty minutes of "Yes" and "No," he gave up trying.

Our flights home seemed to take an eternity. We arrived back in Atlanta around 2 a.m. Bull and Allie drove me to my house. As I walked to my front door and turned the key, I looked back at them. Allie raised her hand in a halfhearted goodbye as they backed down the drive and slowly pulled away.

I went into my big, empty house and sat down on my sofa. I stared endlessly at the walls. At some point I was overcome by fatigue, waking up the next morning lying where I had fallen asleep the night before.

I stood, walked to the kitchen, and made coffee. I then took a long, very over-needed shower. Once dressed, I walked to the front door, opened it, and retrieved a weeks worth of papers from their usual spot in the bushes. Each front page was covered with the news of Eisenhower signing all kinds of civil rights legislation.

Even though the news was immense in its day, it all seemed small and petty compared to the story I had to tell. Aliens had invaded our planet. There was actual intelligent life elsewhere in the universe, and it was obviously much more advanced than us. We were living in dangerous times and yet were unaware.

As I scanned the papers, I thought about how we had somehow overcome our disadvantages and put an end to the aliens' exploratory mission. I then wondered if they had landed elsewhere. I began tearing through the rest of the pages looking for any little story of such.

News of aliens would not have been buried in the back, it would have been a front-page headline. After several frustrating minutes, I had come to the conclusion there was no sign of alien anything... anywhere. Perhaps the military had encountered them, or perhaps they had selected some small backwater country and the news had just not yet leaked out.

I badly wanted just a piece of one of those demons to hold in my hand, one I could then hold up to the world. I wanted to tell of our amazing deeds and heroics. The world needed to know. But my story would go nowhere without the backing of the others. My family and friends had clammed up when I needed them most.

I returned to work the following day, but I left early, as I just could no longer focus. First one week and then two went by. My clients were starting to get edgy with my standoffish and distracted behavior. They had been used to my catering to their every need and to my soothing their every worry. They had been placated with one insurance package or another, sold with speeches about how they were covered and protected, or about how their investments were doing well. For several weeks, all they had received were short "yes" and "no" answers.

A full month had gone by before I finally picked up the phone and called Bull and Allie. I sensed a bit of unease from Bull, and our conversation went nowhere. The only thing we had to discuss was our trip, and he had no interest in talking about it.

It was driving me crazy having the knowledge I had and not being able to tell anyone. My focus and attention to those things that mattered in daily life were no longer there. I was obsessed with finding the evidence that would set my silenced story free. The call ended soon after I brought up the subject of the alien encounter and asked if he would reconsider. The answer from Kyle and Susi was the same. I was truly on my own.

### Chapter 18

### _______________________

**A** fter hanging up the phone, I made the decision to go back out west. I would hike back into the wilderness and find that bit of evidence I so desired. Once that decision was made, the life seemed to come back into me. I once again had a purpose and a desire to accomplish something. I was determined I would find a piece of the invaders, even if it took the rest of my life.

Within the week, I had sold my business to a competitor. My home had been put on the market, and I began to liquidate all my investments. On the first of August, I boarded a plane back to Sacramento and was on my way to find my future.

Shortly after arriving, I looked up the Sacramento outfitter Bull had partnered with. I arranged to buy enough gear for some extended hiking. I also talked him into giving me whatever outdoor training he could offer. I signed up two hiking guides to accompany me and to help with my survival. Money was no object, and the man was more than willing to help me part with my cash.

I spent a month in Sacramento before I was ready to hit the trail. I was warned that snows would be expected soon at the higher elevations. The weather would make hiking and survival more difficult. My only concern was getting out to the wilderness, so I could scour the grounds for that one bit of treasure.

We arrived at the Cherry Lake dam and immediately began our hike back toward Woods Ridge. We spent a day at Cherry Creek, where Minhafa had sprung past me and overturned the first demon. The guides fished, hunted small game, or just sat around camp playing cards as I moved meticulously back and forth, looking under every bush and beside every rock.

They asked repeatedly what I was looking for so they could help. I could not say without running the risk of them thinking I was crazy and walking off the job. Besides, I felt they were best used by keeping me fed and secure while I searched for my reward. The next day we moved our camp to Woods Creek and the site where we had lured the second demon into our ambush.

The results were the same as I spent the entire day combing the area for any little sign of our visitors. The spots of ground where the green fog had spread out were still largely bare. When I was asked about them, I gave no answer and continued my search.

I had thoroughly covered each of our previous battlefields after two weeks. The guides were ready to go back to their homes, their wives, families, and lives. When we returned to Sacramento, I sat all evening in a hotel room just staring out the window at the autos going up and down the street.

The next day I went to the nearest car dealer, purchased a used pickup truck, and then made my way by the outfitter's store. I reloaded on all my hiking and camping supplies. He once again offered two guides, and I once again accepted his price without negotiation.

Again, two weeks came and went as we covered the same ground a second time with no luck. This time the snow was beginning to fall on the last day. I knew I would only have one more shot before having to wait until spring. On the third try we were stranded for two days by a heavy snow, bringing our excursion to an early end. I was told the high country would now be covered with the white powder until at least April. Not until then would there be enough snowmelt to show all the ground I wanted to search.

It was a hard winter for me, just sitting around Sacramento until spring. In my boredom, I did some bookkeeping for several businesses and arranged a few insurance deals for them as well. I wasn't making enough to live off, but it kept my mind somewhat occupied as I waited for the spring thaw.

Besides, I had loads of money in the bank after my home sold in Atlanta. I was still well off for a man in the 1950s. I spent the winter learning about survival and the back-country and studying maps. I would no longer need any guides for direction, but I would still take them along to run my camp. It would allow me to spend my time searching.

I spent most of April through September of 1958 going over and over the places we had encountered the demons. There just did not seem to be anything to find. The snow melted and the grass grew, and the once-telltale barren spots were now lush and green with new growth.

By the end of summer in 1958, I was going out and staying by myself for a month at a time. Come early October, the cold and the snow moved in again, crippling my search activities. I once again spent the winter months working odd jobs to make a little extra cash, as my bank account was beginning to slowly decline. That Christmas I sent Bull, Allie, Kyle, and Susi each a Christmas card. Susi and Kyle had gotten married, but I was out in the wild at the time, so I did not attempt to attend.

My life had changed drastically since our trip out west. I had a scraggly beard growing and my hair was unkempt. The constant summer days in the sun were taking their toll on my skin. The back-country life was hard, and I had become a scrawny old stick of a man who was in constant need of a bath.

My obsession with finding an alien artifact was all-consuming. I was becoming known around Sacramento as this crazy old guy who was searching for something that could never be found. Everyone assumed it was something I had lost, and I thought it was just as well they think it. It was my business to find it and my business alone.

What had started out as an all-out hunt for however long it took... soon turned into fifteen years of wandering, prodding, and poking.

My fortune had dwindled to just enough to keep paying for my room and board during the winter months and to purchase a modest amount of supplies for the summer. The physical toll on my body was much greater. During my hikes I had a number of falls. Twice I dislocated a shoulder, once I broke my lower leg, and I had numerous sprains, twists, and bruises. The scars from the rough outdoor life were now too numerous to count.

My family history was such that the men of my stock rarely made it past fifty-five years of age. We were just not sturdy folk, as they used to say. And I had noticed that I was beginning to slow significantly in the amount of terrain I could cover during any outing.

I had come to the conclusion I would probably die out in the wilderness alone, still searching for the one bread crumb of evidence that fed my obsession. I had been over each of the places we had encountered the demons at least a hundred times, but I was compelled to venture on.

On one particular day in late August of 1973, I came to our camp by Laurel Lake. I sat down by the tree where I had first seen the red demon eyes and where Bull had taken his first shots at them. It was a familiar place to me, just as were all the others. As I sat, taking a break from my constant downward gaze, I noticed a swath of brush moving just behind another set of small boulders. I stretched out my hand and placed it on my bat. After fifteen years in the woods, it was still my preferred form of protection.

Up from the brush and onto one of the boulders jumped an old, haggard-looking mountain lion. It was the first one I had seen since the one I had called Minhafa had saved me from the demon by Cherry Creek.

The old cat just stood and looked at me for several minutes. It was then when I decided maybe I really had snapped and that I had wasted the last fifteen years wandering around the woods like a lunatic. But I could not turn back the clock. I had lost touch with my family and friends. There really was nothing to go back to. The wilderness had become my home and the searching obsession my life.

The old cat continued to stare at me to the point where I started to grow angry. I held up my bat and waved it at the beast and shouted for it to leave. But the old cat just stood and stared. I then stood up and shouted and tried to move about in a threatening manner, but it made no difference; the old mountain lion was not impressed.

So, I did next what any insane person would do. I charged at it with my bat raised while bellowing out one curse word after another. As I got to about thirty feet away, the old lion turned and hopped back down into the bushes and slowly loped away. I stopped in front of the boulders and watched as the tail end of the cat disappeared into the woods. I leaned over on the boulder and took a breath and wondered again if I had not gone fully mad.

As I turned to go back to my searching, I caught the slightest reflection off something down at the base of the boulder. There... lying among some dried grass... was the item of my longtime obsession.

At first I was in disbelief. It could not possibly be a part of the alien machines. How could the item have gotten over there when the alien had clearly fogged the rocks sixty feet away? I reached down and picked it up. My hand was trembling. This was the proof I had been looking for... for fifteen years!

I let out a howl and danced a jig, and then let out another howl. I kept up the celebration until I had no breath left. I sat on the ground and just stared at the item for most of an hour as I relived each of our battles with the aliens over and over in my head. I thought about how heroic I had been and about how we had defeated the alien invaders with our wits, and a lot of luck.

I guessed that at our first encounter with the red, demon eyes, when Bull had fired his .45, one of the bullets had found its mark. It had knocked the item sixty-odd feet away. I had browsed by the rocks before, but never with the extreme scrutiny I had given to the previous bare spots.

The find was huge. I decided I would grab my pack and make haste for Sacramento. I needed to call the others. They would now have to join me, as I now had the evidence the world needed to see.

Two days later, I reached my apartment and immediately picked up the phone. I first called Bull and Allie, but got no answer. I then called my sister and Kyle and was thrilled when someone spoke. I asked who it was and discovered it to be a ten-year-old nephew I didn't know I had. He passed the phone to Susi, who remained mostly silent as I told her of my find. Kyle was at work, and she told me I should call back that evening to talk with him.

Susi also told me that Bull and Allie were gone on a vacation to Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons. She gave me a hotel number, and I called as soon as I had finished talking with her. She didn't show the excitement about the find I had hoped for— or that I had expected.

It took me two hours of calling the hotel in Yellowstone before the clerk finally told me they had just checked out. They had given a forwarding address of a hotel near the Grand Tetons, where they would be for the next two days.

As soon as I was off the phone, I packed a small bag with a change of clothes and headed outside to my truck. I stopped at the first gas station and tanked up. I purchased a road map that would take me across the Sierra Nevadas and to Salt Lake City.

From Salt Lake I would make my way over to the Grand Tetons and to Bull and Allie's hotel. I would have half a day to spare before they were scheduled to depart. I drove all evening and through the night, arriving in Jackson, Wyoming, late the following evening.

I pulled into a local store, got directions to their hotel, and then made my way straight there. It was after midnight when I arrived, so I decided to just stay in the lobby of the hotel until morning. As I waited, I made use of the hotel bathroom to freshen myself up. I was a mess; I smelled bad and I looked bad. The clerk at the counter had a suspicious eye that followed me through the lobby and into the bathroom.

I took off my shirt and splashed the cold water on my face and under my arms. I then used about half of the hand towels they had available to dry myself. Finally, I put on the spare change of clothes I had brought in my bag.

When I emerged from the bathroom, I still smelled bad and looked bad. After refusing to ring their room, the clerk maintained his watch over me as I sat in the lounge to await my friends. It only took a few minutes before I was asked to please leave the hotel if I did not have a room. So, I slept the rest of the night in my truck.

At first light I once again entered the lobby and began my wait. It was about 8 a.m. when Bull and Allie came walking down the stairs into the lobby. They were smiling and holding hands and looking at each other as they walked. They proceeded to walk past me without taking notice.

I called out Bull's name, and he stopped and turned. I then realized why he had not recognized me. I was fifteen years older, and it might as well have been fifty years given the shape I was in.

I was scrawny. I walked with a slight limp, and my posture was hunched over a bit from all those years of looking down at the ground. I was certain the disheveled hair and the wild gray beard did not help.

Bull came over slowly and asked me how I was and what I was doing there. I reached into my pocket and pulled out my prize. As I held it up, my hand was shaking. I told him it had taken me fifteen years, but I had found the evidence we could show the world. I told him we could finally tell our story, and of how everyone would know we were the heroes we knew we were. I told him about how this was going to change our lives and make us famous.

His response was silence. I continued to ramble on about what this was going to mean for us all, and he finally stopped me and pointed to Allie and the two young boys and a girl that were now standing with her. He told me he already had more than he could ever want. He did not want his life to change, because as far as he was concerned, it was already perfect.

The same feeling of anger that had come over me fifteen years earlier began to well up inside again. I was mad and in disbelief they wanted nothing to do with my find. I had the proof in my hand that aliens existed and had been to our world!

After several minutes of my arguing and getting a bit irrational, Bull turned and signaled to Allie to take the kids away. He then turned back to face me and put his hand on my shoulder. He told me he had no interest in the device, or in the alien story, and did not want to subject his family, his children, to any part of it. He did not want the publicity or the turmoil that would come with telling about the aliens. I was angry, but at the same time, I could see he was genuine in his concern for both his family and their lives together.

Bull had been my best friend as long as I could remember having a friend. I knew I could no longer involve him and Allie or their children in my strange tale. I would just as soon cut off my own leg as cause them grief or harm.

After my moment of rage waned, a calmness returned. I told him I would not involve him, Allie, or the kids in the revealing of my find. Aside from the friendship we had shared for so many years, I owed him my life at least a half-dozen times over.

As Allie began to herd the kids back up the stairs of the hotel toward their room, I raised my hand in a friendly wave. Allie stopped for a moment, then smiled and continued up the steps. I walked out of the hotel lobby unsure of what to do next. There was a pay phone sitting to my left, and I decided it was time to give Kyle and Susi another call. I needed to see if they were of the same mind as Bull and Allie.

After ten minutes on the phone, I told my sister goodbye. I told her not to worry, as I would not involve them either. I was dejected. Most of my adult life had been spent searching for this bit of alien hardware, and the people I needed with me most... wanted nothing to do with it.

I turned and walked into the hotel parking lot and to my truck. I retrieved my bat and then stood silently for several minutes just looking at the ground. I crossed the street and walked into the nearest woods. I felt at home in the woods. The trees and rocks had become my friends and family. I mumbled to myself as I walked deeper into them.

I rambled aimlessly through the woods in deep thought for several hours. When I emerged, I was standing behind a diner near the highway. I leaned my bat against a tree and walked into the gravel parking lot of the establishment.

The diner had a giant teepee on one end of a long covered porch with a wooden Indian by the door. Several rocking chairs and a bench offered a welcoming feel. I walked onto the porch and took a seat on the bench. In my new depression, I was unsure of what to do with what I had and what I knew. I sat with my head in my hands for most of an hour.

I did not want to go it alone with some crazy alien story in the fast-paced world of 1973. Fame and fortune no longer seemed important. Without the support of my family and friends, I had no desire to tell the world of my heroics. For the first time in fifteen years I had no purpose, no drive, no destination to strive for or seek out.

I then came to a decision that my obsession had done nothing but ruin my life. Why had I been so consumed with finding this device? Why was it so important? How had it done anything to enrich anyone's short life on this world?

In that moment I wanted to be rid of the demon artifact. I wanted to rid myself of the burden it had placed upon me. I was in need of a quick solution to my long lived problem. I was in need of an irreversible end.

As I sat there on the porch, a family approached the diner. As they came up to the front door, a young boy stopped and was making faces at the wooden Indian. At that moment I decided he should now hold the responsibility of the alien artifact, if for no other reason than because he was there.

I got up from the bench and moved down the porch behind him. As I walked, I concocted a wild story about how others were after me and how he would need to protect it from them. I then grabbed his right forearm and jammed the device into his small hand before he had a chance to say no. He stood silently and listened to my fifteen-second rant. I then turned and walked away.

I had no idea what the boy might do with the device, and I no longer cared. If he threw it down, I hoped it would get swept up and thrown in the trash forever. I was finished with the aliens, and for the first time in fifteen years a real sense of calm and peace came over me. I walked around the side of the building, collected my bat, and proceeded to walk back into the woods, with no desire to look back. I had found my permanent solution.

I never found out what the boy did with the item, and for that I was thankful. A wide grin was on my face as I walked the several hours back to my truck. I had come to the conclusion that I had proven to myself all that needed to be proved. I was free from the knowledge that had become my obsession.

I then came to the realization of what an obstinate fool I had been for my entire life. It was no wonder my wife had left me. My sense of what was important was warped, and it always had been. I had an epiphany about who I was and just what mattered.

I no longer felt the need to prove myself to anyone for any reason. And I no longer felt I was entitled to anyone's attention. I had lived a life centered around only what I wanted, only what I perceived to be good for me. It had only served to drive away my family and friends. I was alone in the world, but for the first time in my adult life I didn't feel lonely.

I then drove north for several hours, stopping in Big Springs, Montana before deciding to call it home. I would shave and clean myself up. I would transfer what little money I had in Sacramento to the local bank, and I would live out my final days as just another normal citizen, a friendly old man who was always helpful and caring of others, always putting them before himself.

Gone were my thought patterns that aggravated others. Gone was my desire to be a hero or my need to somehow compensate for my lack of height. And gone was my obsession with any part of my life. I had let go. I was free. I would just be me, not looking to have influence or advantage over anyone or anything.

I was certain the aliens would one day return, but it was no longer an item of my concern. Our handful of ordinary citizens had beaten them once. I believed there to be no reason why we could not do it again. But it was a fight in which I no longer felt the need to be involved. My war with the aliens, and my battles with obsession, were over.

As the days went by, I would always keep one reminder of my fight for survival: my old hickory Hillerich & Bradsby S44 baseball bat. It sat, standing on end, leaning against the wall in the corner of my bedroom. A small notch was missing out of the handle where I had fought for our lives and won. If the aliens were ever to return... and if I should feel the need to join in the fight... my trusty friend would be waiting, always ready to be swung in the defense of humanity.

~~~~~

### What's Next?

### _______________________

This Human is asking for your help! If you enjoyed this book, please leave a review on the site where it was purchased. And by all means, please tell your friends! Any help with spreading the word is highly appreciated! Find out when the next exciting release is available by joining the email list at comments@arsenex.com. I have a free science fiction eBook short story, titled "THE SQUAD", waiting for anyone who sends an email to that address. Visit the author's website at www.arsenex.com for links to this series and other works.

The following preview of the next book in the series is provided for your reading pleasure. I hope you enjoy!

Stephen

(Turn the page)

(Preview)

### SODIUM

(Vol. 2)

### Apocalypse

### Chapter 2.1

_______________________

**T** he year was 1973—I was seven years old. And the fate of the world was about to be placed in my hands.

Man was not aware that other beings—hostile beings—inhabited our little part of the universe, and we were not prepared to protect mankind from them. We had only recently set foot on the moon.

We had easily risen to the top of the food chain here on Earth. We were clever, resilient, and bold. We were fighters, determined to shape our own destinies. But we had never taken on an enemy that was intelligent like ourselves.

Little did I know that scenario was about to change. One could only be amazed at how such a tiny device would change the course of history.

I was too excited about our trip out West.

My parents had saved for several years for a family vacation to Yellowstone National Park. They had planned a two-week trip by car, leaving from Detroit the day after school let out for the summer. The baby-blue family Rambler had been packed the night before. I remember being all nervous before we left the house.

As we set out that day, my thoughts weren't about man's role in the universe or about what else might be out there. My thoughts were entirely preoccupied with our trip to Indian country.

Every hundred miles along the interstate, it seemed we passed an exit that had a trading post with a teepee out front. It was definitely Indian country, and my brother and I kept a sharp lookout for any signs of trouble.

Our father had filled our imaginations with scenes of Indians on horseback attacking the roadway. All I could think about was fighting Indians and hunting grizzlies. It seemed most every young boy back in the early seventies had dreams of being either a cowboy, a soldier, or both. I was no exception.

After the first day's drive, we pulled into a motor lodge outside Sioux Falls on the eastern end of South Dakota. Even with the excitement of the trip, it was a tiring ride. We unloaded what we needed for the night from the car, checked into our room, and went promptly to bed. After sixteen hours on the road... the thrill was gone.

The following day was an early riser, placing us back on Interstate 90 to Badlands National Park at the western end of South Dakota. My dad told stories of how the Badlands were a big meteor crater. He said the meteor had fallen through the skies from Mars thousands of years ago. My brother and I spent the afternoon looking for Martians behind every rock, but try as we might, we were unable to track down a single one.

It didn't occur to us that Dad's story was just that—a story. We believed him on his word.

After a full afternoon of hunting and sightseeing, it was back to the motor lodge along I-90. That night our father ushered us into dreams with wild tales of Indians and the soldiers who fought them.

We rose early the next day for the trek to our next destination—the Little Big Horn and Custer's Last Stand. Despite my disappointment over not finding any Martians, I had high hopes of fighting Indians.

Dad's stories added excitement to the long, boring car rides, but I was a little frustrated by seeing all the trading posts that advertised Indians but not seeing a single one. I guessed that maybe the cavalry kept the interstate protected, or they otherwise would not be allowing us to travel it.

After a night, a full day, and another night at the Little Big Horn, we were ready to move on to Yellowstone. I tried to hide my disappointment that the only Indian we saw was a wrinkled old man with a feather in his cap. He was smoking a pipe and sitting outside the visitor's center at the Little Big Horn. The old Indian certainly was not hostile, and he was certainly not interested in my scalp. I looked longingly back at him through the rear window of the car as we pulled away.

The next adventure was much the same. After three adventurous days in Yellowstone seeing the geysers, mud pots, and buffalo, it was on to the Grand Tetons. Again my dreams of the wild west had gone unfulfilled. We arrived at the Grand Teton visitor's center at about eleven thirty in the morning. Hunger was on all our faces.

The ladies in the visitor's center directed us just down the road to a diner that served buffalo burgers. The diner—the Double S, it was called—was constructed to look like an old Western building covered with weathered plank siding and a metal roof. It had a covered front porch with rocking chairs and a big wooden Indian by the entrance. The left end of the building had a giant teepee attached for drawing in tourists like ourselves. The smell of grilling buffalo was in the air, and the hungry travelers were eager to get at it.

My parents and little brother walked in front of me up onto the diner's porch and in through the front door. I lingered for just a moment to check out the big wooden Indian. This one looked like it had more fight in it than the wrinkled old pipe smoker at the Little Big Horn.

I stood making faces at the stoic savage as if I had nothing to fear from it. Then suddenly an old man grabbed me by the arm. He had a full, gray, frazzled beard, was dressed in rags, and had a smell about him that nearly brought tears to my eyes. He had big, bushy eyebrows and one eye that squinted while the other looked fully open. He perfectly fit the stereotype of every crazy guy I had ever seen in the movies or on TV, but strangely, I was not scared.

He shoved something in my hand and told me to watch out for "them." He said "they" were everywhere, and that I should never give "them" the device he had forced upon me. He said to never tell anyone where I had gotten it from or "they" would kill him. He only said it once and then released my arm. I turned for just a moment to look for my parents, who had already gone inside. When I turned back, the old man was already disappearing around the corner of the building.

I stood there looking at my hand, then back at the corner of the building, and then again at my hand. It was a strange-looking cylindrical item that had the appearance of a tiny shock-absorber. It had been broken off from something else at both ends. The device was a mystery, and the circumstance by which it was placed in my hand immediately awakened my imagination.

Once again I was jolted by a grab... this time to my other arm. It was my little brother, Rex, ranting about buffalo burgers and lunch. I secretly slid the device into my pocket and followed Rex inside. As we waited to be seated, I looked out the windows and caught a glimpse of the old man making his way into the woods behind the diner. He walked quickly, but with a limp. I took a final glance back toward the roadway to see if he was being watched or followed, but there was no one else around.

I don't know why I never told my dad about the incident or showed him the device. Maybe it was the thought of getting in trouble somehow for talking to a stranger; maybe it was the fact I did not want to let my pesky little brother in on my new adventure. Either way, it made for an exciting day.

From the Tetons, we made our way over to Dinosaur National Monument. I enjoyed seeing the history, but I would not be drawn into a hunt for real dinosaurs as urged by my father. Twice burned, I had learned my lesson.

We then had a several-day drive back to Detroit. I kept the old man's item hidden away from my little brother in my pocket. I took pleasure from the idea I could reach in and fumble with it at will with no one the wiser. I spent many hours wondering about who "they" were, what was so special about this device, and why I had been selected to receive it.

When we arrived home, I raced into my room and into my closet. I had a small metal box with a combination lock on it. My mom had given it to me several years before. It was the one secure place I had where I could keep things I did not want my brother to get his grubby little hands on.

For what seemed like every night for a month, I would go into my closet just before bed. I would get out the device to stare at it and daydream about what it might be. But I was seven, and with it being summertime, the intrigue of the device was soon relegated to just the occasional look.

By the end of the summer the mystery device had lost its appeal, remaining locked in the box in my closet. Junior high and high school went by like a blur, and I soon found myself wearing a cap and gown and receiving a diploma. The device did not see daylight again until my college days.

Little did I know how significant a role that tiny little item would play in my life. Somehow, fate had seen to it that one brief encounter would later play a major role in the survival of Man.

Only luck would prepare me for the things that were to come.

### Chapter 2.2

### _______________________

**U** ntil a few months before that day, my life had been pretty ordinary. I grew up in a lower-middle-income home on the outskirts of Detroit. Mom and Dad both worked and had always provided my brother and me with food, shelter, and clothing. Much of our school district was at the same income level, so everyone got along well. It was your typical American neighborhood with one old, used car in each drive and a clothesline in use out back during the warmer months.

I managed three and a half years of high school football before a knee injury ended my college speculations. As a result, I was destined for a factory job making auto parts down at the plant where my dad had worked for thirty-five years. That life had worked for my father, and although we didn't have a lot, we had always managed to get by.

It's strange how, when you don't have much, you don't seem to need much. We only had a handful of well-to-do kids in our school, and since they tended to stay to themselves, no one really viewed themselves as have-nots. In my family, you were taught to always live within your means and to be responsible in your actions.

My dad was a shade tree mechanic in his spare time, always fixing the neighbors' cars and anyone else's that got sent his way. It gave him extra cash to spend on a project car—an old Mercedes diesel. When I was about ten, he had purchased it and began the restoration. He named it Suzie. I hoped against hope it would not become my first vehicle.

I knew my way around an engine block even if, as a teenager, working on cars never really appealed to me. At the time, I had no car of my own, and other than hanging out with friends, I didn't really need one. Lucky for me, the factory was only a three-block walk from our house.

Every six months or so, my dad would get the bug or save enough cash to continue his work on Suzie. It took his friends in the auto business most of a year before to locate one particular used part. After some dealings over the phone, he had it shipped to a man named Delmar at the Mercedes dealership across town. It arrived on a Friday, and I was given the task of picking it up, and that errand would affect my heart for the rest of my life.

Before I left the house for the dealership, my dad forced me to put on a nice set of clothes. Apparently my raggedy old jeans and tank top weren't adequate for picking up a part at the Mercedes dealership. It was as if he thought the parts-counter people were going to turn me away. But I had learned long before it just wasn't worth the arguing, so on the nice clothes went. Besides, I was happy to get out of the house, even if it was just behind the wheel of the old Rambler. It had seen its better days on the outside, but it purred like a kitten under the hood.

I arrived at the dealership around 10:00 a.m. only to find out that Delmar wasn't going to be in until noon. So, with a couple hours to kill, I thought I would take a stroll through the showroom and look at the latest models I could not ever dream of affording.

It was there where I had chanced upon the love of my life. Her name was Renee. I was the handsome young buck without a clue, and she was the carefree daughter of a well-to-do businessman. Her father was a partner in a financial services company, and her family wanted for nothing.

It was her summer to run wild before her senior year in high school, and it was my summer to hang out with my buddies, drink beer, and chase tail before beginning the second-shift grind at the auto-parts factory in August, when the new union contract kicked in.

I had my eye on a shiny, white show car when Renee came hopping through the front door with her father. For her seventeenth birthday, it seemed she was getting a new Mercedes, and it was a convertible to boot. Her father had accompanied her and made a beeline straight to the sales manager to start working on his deal. Renee had been left alone to look over the showroom queen when I decided to make my bold move.

She was just a petite little thing, but she had a great figure and a killer smile. I casually walked up beside her and asked if there was anything I could help her with that day. She said I looked rather young for a salesman, so I decided maybe she should be educated on the latest feature set of the convertible.

I began naming off fictitious features while waving my arms around like I knew what I was talking about. We sat in the car, turned on the radio, pushed various buttons and twisted knobs. I managed two minutes with my charade before a real salesman made his way over and busted me.

Renee was actually amused and giggling as I made my way out of the car while apologizing profusely to the salesman. I had just enough time to give her a wink before returning to the parts-counter waiting room to once again wait on Delmar.

To my surprise, a few minutes later, Renee made her way in, swishing from side to side as she walked and then sitting down beside me with a big grin on her face. We talked for almost an hour before her father came in with the keys to that very same convertible. A chance encounter in the showroom that morning had started us on a journey of fun that would eventually lead us down the path to marriage.

I had come from a lesser neighborhood, and it wasn't long before the association with her father's wealth went to my head. He was generous, especially when it came to his baby girl.

That fall, work at the factory placed paychecks in my hand. Not wanting to be chauffeured by my girlfriend, I had gone out and purchased a used car. It was a Camaro that had seen its better days, but it was mine.

Renee's mom could not stand the thought of anyone seeing me drive onto their property in the beat-up old muscle car. So she saw to it I had the keys to one of Renee's father's sports cars. This one was a beauty: a bright red Ferrari with all the trimmings. This was not the proper auto for an eighteen-year-old male with an already inflated ego. And to prove such, I would often challenge the local folk to the midnight expressway drag. It was laughably easy to humiliate them with the monster Ferrari—that's where the thrill came in. With Renee, I had all the spending cash I could want; winning money from drags was just the icing on the cake.

One particular night, I selected a fool and his Oldsmobile. For fifty bucks, I was willing to humiliate him in front of his friends.

We made our way out onto the now largely empty freeway around 3:00 a.m. I was in the left lane, the kid in the Olds in the right. His friends had followed in their car and hopped out and gave us an arm-drop start. Immediately the Ferrari lurched ahead.

I was giddy over the ease with which I pulled away from him—so much so that as I reached and passed 100 mph and shifted into third, I decided to add to his embarrassment by swerving into his lane and then back into my own. There was no danger of a collision; I was easily five car lengths ahead of him at the time.

I was not counting on how hard the road surface was or how hard my own tires were. It was eight degrees that cold Detroit night, and the hard tires and road surface, along with my foolishness at that speed, spelled out disaster. Everything seemed to move in slow motion in my head, but it happened in seconds. It was almost as though I was watching it all happen from a position outside of and just behind the car.

The Ferrari spun wildly off the side of the interstate, over a berm, and into a sleeping neighborhood.

I opened my eyes to the sight of flashing blue lights and to the sound of an approaching ambulance. I didn't know at what point I had been knocked cold. Blood dripped from my broken and throbbing nose, and through my teary eyes, I could see my left arm was bent where it should not have been.

I shivered from the shock of the accident and the frigid Detroit air. Through what was left of my windshield, I could see the garage of a nearby home was in flames. The Ferrari had been cut in half after striking a phone pole at more than 100 mph.

The tail-end of the sports car had crashed into the garage, setting it ablaze, while the front end, with me still inside, had slid just between two large oaks and into a chain-link fence. The fence had been ripped from every pole except for the corners and had acted like a giant net. This kept the cab and myself largely intact, which had undoubtedly saved my life. I wasn't sure at the time if it was luck or if someone above had bigger plans for me, but either way, I was happy to still be counted among the living.

The driver of the Olds and his friends had fled the scene, but I could hardly blame them. What kid wanted to end up in jail over some idiot's behavior on the streets?

My life had been spared, but my days of racing had come to an abrupt end...

~~~~~

**O** nce again, this Human is asking for your help! If you enjoyed the book, please leave a review on the site where it was purchased or downloaded. And by all means, please tell your friends! Any help with spreading the word is highly appreciated!

Also, I have a free science fiction eBook short story, titled "THE SQUAD", waiting for anyone who joins my email list! By joining, also find out when the next exciting release is available. Join at comments@arsenex.com. Visit the author's website at www.arsenex.com for links to this series and other works!

Take care and have a great day!

Stephen
