BAD RAIN: A SCI-FICTION THRILLER Page 5

  Jeff replied, “Sure, I was dying inside to tell someone, but because Al and I are respected members of the community we felt we had to be right or face criticism that would probably cost us both our jobs. Besides, we were seeing this thing but nothing abnormal was being reported, so we felt we had time to get the proof we needed.”

  Jeff went on, “Our strategy from that night on was to set up one camera with an infrared lens and one without. We also agreed that on the next chase, Al would wear the goggles and I wouldn’t. Since then we’ve been on numerous chases. At first we didn’t see anything, but the last two we saw the UFO. We picked this floating monster up only with infrared lenses. Al could stand there and watch it floating along in a thunderstorm with the goggles on, yet I couldn’t see a thing. We even reversed it and I could see it with the goggles, but as soon as I took them off it was gone. Because we were not getting anywhere in actual proof, I told Al that we should tell the story and show the film to my producers at the TV station. Al agreed, but only if we went on one last chase and nothing new showed up.

  “The opportunity for that last chase came tonight. That’s why I said it was different. Janet, we all saw this thing with the naked eye and we picked it up on infrared goggles. Our cameras, one with and one without infrared showed it on both. We now have the proof we need to go to someone and tell our story. The only thorn in my side is that since Al and I started picking up this UFO, we have not heard of any devastation or sightings elsewhere. In different words, UFO issues are strangely quiet throughout the world this week. Now, we have radar picking this up, destruction on the ground and visual sightings with and without goggles. Something is wrong, Janet! I just have a real bad feeling about this, like we’re entering a terminal phase or something, terminal for us.

  Janet offered an extremely short, but accurate summary of the whole problem. “Basically, what you and Al have been seeing in the last few months showed up only on night vision lenses. No reports of destruction, sightings or radar pickups. Nothing abnormal until the last few days, but now you can see this UFO for the first time with and without the help of lenses. I would, indeed, say we have a huge problem, Jeff.”

  “Not that I disagree, but, playing devil’s advocate, why do you think there’s a problem?” Jeff asked.

  “This is what I think. Judging from what I saw on your videos and camera shots, this thing or things has not created any problems for anyone. Maybe it just likes thunderstorms, maybe in the alien world it’s taking a shower, who the hell knows, I’m not a UFO expert. But, in the last few days our visitor has created problems, big ones, with the potential of a major disaster if it intentionally or unintentionally drops any UFO acid on populated areas.

  “I believe we have one of two scenarios. It’s either testing its destructive power on desolate areas before it starts on mankind or it has something wrong with it and doesn’t know it’s creating the devastation we saw on land, sort of a city nerd who has a car with an oil leak. The driver doesn’t know it’s dripping oil, but if a drop falls on the grass, it kills and contaminates that area forever. Somehow, we need Earth experts to find out, and damn fast.

  “I don’t mean to sound suggestive,” Janet said, “but why don’t you grab a change of clothes, bring me back to my hotel room and stay in the spare bedroom tonight. This will allow us to head out first thing in the morning back to tonight’s UFO site. We have to see if there’s any destruction don’t we, similar to the other sites. It’s close to the airport, right?”

  Jeff agreed, put what he needed into a gym bag and drove back to the airport. On the way, they bounced theories around as to what was happening. The worst was an invasion from another planet, this time not Orson Welles and the October 1938, CBS Mercury Theatre On-the-Air. The best was Goodyear was testing how their new state-of-the-art blimp would respond in severe weather. Maybe the truth wasn’t even somewhere in the middle.

  Jeff and Janet took a quick peek at the spare bedroom, “Looks fine to me,” Jeff said. “I’ll set the alarm for 6:00 a.m. Let’s plan on leaving by 7:00. See you in the mornin’, love.”

  Janet agreed. Standing there and for a moment thinking about what could be, she turned to leave as he caught her by the hand. When she faced him square on, he gently kissed her on the lips, exchanging a warm, moist kiss and then it was goodnight for sure.

  Jeff laid awake a long time. His mind kept flashing images back and forth regarding incidents of the past few months. He also knew Janet was lying in the room next to his and he wanted to go to her. The last thing he remembered before dozing off was his mind saying, —Bad, Jeff. Bad-”

  The 6:00 a.m. alarm came too soon. Janet had also spent a restless night with images of people standing in the rain, screaming as each drop of bad rain touched their skin and began dissolving right through it. Pictures of parents desperately trying to protect their children from one of nature’s most natural and needed elements, water. Her thoughts had included Jeff, but the real potential of a catastrophic event prevented her from enjoying such thoughts.

  After a quick cup of coffee, they headed out to last night’s sighting, approximately a ten-minute drive from the airport. Soon they were walking in the field where they stood last night, looking up and visualizing the foreboding, floating football stadium. As they walked along, Jeff pointed at the small mounds of sand and warned Janet not step on the venom-injecting, fire-ant nests. These little monsters looked like a normal harmless brown ant, but if the nest is disturbed they instantly swarm up in such tremendous numbers they make a bee swarm look mild in comparison. The sand is no longer seen, only a moving mass of ants that charge after anything that has disturbed them. If you’re unlucky and don’t move your foot fast enough, you could have hundreds of ants crawling and biting you in seconds. As these coral snakes of the ant world bite, they inject a poison that will, within minutes, cause the area to swell and itch. Within a day, the affected area will be swollen and form a puss like welt. If you’re allergic or bitten by enough of the ants, you could easily die.

  About a hundred yards into their walk, they noticed what had become a familiar sight. Off in the distance lie the naked virgin. It wasn’t a large area, only about two hundred yards long, but it was stripped of all vegetation leaving only the Florida, sandy soil exposed to the all too familiar scene. This was an open field, so the destruction looked like a sod farmer had just strip-cut the area to fill an order for some new home being built in Orlando. Jeff and Janet knew better. This was where the unknown dot of alien origin was seen last night.

  “Maybe this UFO wasn’t as dirty as the previous ones,” Janet said sarcastically. “The area is a lot smaller than the monster site we discovered yesterday.”

  Jeff replied, “You know Janet, what you just said might be a hint to what’s going on here.”

  “Oh, so you think we have an abundance of UFOs in the area, dashing into thunderstorms when they feel they need a little cleaning, like a car goes into a car wash? Some are dirtier than others, so the run off water from the ship is the acid mess we’ve been seeing? A really dirty ship leaves a big mess, and an alien, obsessed with keeping his sleek, horny ship clean, only leaves a small one? I’m sorry but why now, why here?” Janet shouted, looking upward as if she expected the skies to answer the plea.

  “Let me call my TV station,” Jeff said, “and see if they’ll bring out the helicopter and pick us up here. Then we can follow the path the storm took and see if there is any more car wash sites.”

  Within minutes of Jeff’s call to the station, they were waving at a helicopter off in the distance. He had been lucky because the helicopter had been airborne and just finished giving the last Sky Witness Traffic Report when Jeff called in. Since he was in the area, the pilot didn’t mind, but Jeff’s boss wanted an explanation when he got to work.

  When the chopper landed, they jumped inside and put headphones on immediately. Jeff knew the pilot and explained what he wanted him to do. They circled back to Route 417 and flew northeast along what Jef
f knew to be the storm’s path. Everything looked normal until they flew over the spot where the helicopter picked them up. From the air the area looked even smaller than when on the ground. As the chopper flew past the now naked soil, Jeff told the pilot that’s what they were looking for from here to Orlando. It was better to have three sets of eyes searching the area instead of just two. Besides, the pilot had the best view, and they didn’t want to miss anything.

  They reached the city without seeing anything new, and Jeff asked the pilot to bring them back to where he picked them up. The return flight revealed nothing new and after the pilot set down, Jeff thanked him and said he would explain later what was going on. The pilot gave the thumbs up and left in a cloud of swirling sand and grass.

  Janet declared, “Well, thank god, this seems the only area affected. Let’s head back to my room. I’d like to get setup for the noon meeting and want to put some thoughts down on paper—you set up the VCR to show the video you took last night.”

  They got to Janet’s room a few minutes before 11:30 a.m. and weren’t in the room five minutes before a knock on the door. “Janet Harris, we’re agents from the FBI-my name is Hunter Woods and this is Susan Donemore. Assistant director Brad Balder told us to be here at noon. We’re a little early but hoped you could bring us up to speed before the meeting started.”

  After Janet introduced Jeff, she proceeded to tell them what led up to the call to the assistant director. When she reached the part about actually seeing, recording and describing the UFO, the two agents gave a quick glance at each other, then looked back at Janet. The glance didn’t go unnoticed by Jeff and he quickly asked, “Does this thing sound familiar?”

  Agent Woods responded, “I don’t know if Assistant Director Balder told you, but we’re assigned to a special section of the FBI that investigates what you’re describing. Our background was working with the Air force in the Blue Book Files. But now that they’re closed, we investigate cases that are reported only if the story relates to an old file or from a reputable person that has something new. Mr. Balder speaks very highly of Janet and felt this report should be investigated. To give you a quick answer before we see and hear all the facts would not be beneficial to anyone.”

  Before either Janet or Jeff could reply, there was a knock on the door. Stan, Al, Harry and Clare all came in and exchanged polite greetings as they were introduced to the new faces. Janet suggested they get started and said that if anyone wanted a soft drink or water from the fridge now was the time to get it.

  Janet took care to begin with events from the beginning then wasted no time in describing what had happened last night, getting right into the video Jeff took of the UFO. After watching the incredible, unbelievable but undeniable proof that there was some alien object in that storm last night, Janet passed out the pictures. “Jeff and I went out this morning to the location where these pictures and video were taken. There is a new small devastated area that we discovered almost directly under what you’re looking at. I firmly believe we now have a link to what caused the other sites. I’m sure everyone has questions so let’s write down the facts and try to put some sense to all of this. Then I feel this whole investigation should probably be taken over by the FBI or even the military.”

  The first question came from Agent Woods, “You say this thing was picked up on radar out OIA. Has Mr. Carmack been able to find any other alarms over the same period that Jeff and Al were having sightings?”

  Harry responded, “I have had my people reviewing everything from yesterday’s alarm backwards. So far we have checked about a month’s worth of tapes and only found the three dots.”

  Agent Woods came back with, “Jeff, if I understand you correctly, you and Al have seen more than three objects in the past month haven’t you?”

  “Yes, we have been keeping a journal and I could check it for the exact number, but I know we have seen five or six in the past month.”

  “So there is no correlation between your sightings and radar picking each one up, but there is correlation between each time radar picked up this dot and devastation on the ground. Can you think of any correlation between seeing this thing only with infrared lens, with the naked eye and the radar sightings?” Agent Woods said.

  Jeff thought awhile and responded, “When infrared we always saw the object, that’s how we first discovered it. Up until last night, we never saw the object with the naked eye even if we could see it with infrared. The same holds true for my cameras using infrared, it was caught on film, and without those lenses nothing showed up until last night. So last night was the only time we saw it with the naked eye, infrared, and it was picked up on radar.”

  “Did you and Al take pictures of the other two storms that showed up on radar and caused the devastation you witnessed on the ground? Agent Woods continued.

  “No, we didn’t storm chase the other two, just last night,” Jeff said.

  Agent Woods’ next comment was probably well thought out and anticipated. Still, it shocked everyone to hear the words. “I believe we have a major problem here, a true national emergency, and must act now before it’s too late.”

  “Not that I disagree, but what makes you say that?” Janet said.

  “It sounds to me like this thing has been around for months, being very careful to conceal itself with some kind of cloaking device that prevents it from being seen by us, our radar, and not creating any destruction on land in high population areas that would attract attention. Then a few days ago it’s being picked up by radar, leaving traces of land destruction, and providing naked-eye traces. This indicates an eerie progression.

  “I’d say we have two options, either one leading to a major problem and it would seem we need to get the military in on this now, rather than later. My superiors will have to make the decision,” Agent Woods declared.

  Janet had listened very carefully to everything Agent Woods said, in her mind going over her words to Jeff last night. She then chose her words with caution, “I believe we have one of two scenarios. This alien ship or ships is either testing its destructive power on desolate areas before it starts on mankind or it has something wrong with it and doesn’t know it’s creating the devastation we saw on land, sort of like a car with an oil leak. The driver doesn’t know it’s dripping oil, but if a drop falls on the grass, it kills and contaminates the area forever, two avenues, two scenarios, both leading to a major catastrophic ending.

  “I think I know where you’re going with this, Agent Woods,” she said, “but would you explain the specifics of the two options.”

  Agent Woods replied, “Simply put, I believe this thing has been around a long time. Now, what are its intentions, that is, what’s the point of all this?

  “Judging from the past two days drastic change in pattern, it’s doing one of two things. Either it’s an enemy that has learned enough through testing its ability to destroy us, or it’s friendly and doesn’t know what it’s doing has catastrophic consequences. Both avenues eventually lead to a major event. If the president and his advisors feel we have to retaliate, then, well…that’s why we need the military’s expertise now, his choice to make, of course.”

  The room was silent as the reality of a FBI agent saying we must shoot down an alien spacecraft echoed in their ears. “What happens if we do shoot if down?” Janet said stoically. “Worse yet, what if it can’t be shot down? What then? But if we can shoot it down, will there be contamination, would another ship come, is the world about to go to war with the first life discovered outside the confines of planet Earth? Would we survive?”

  Jeff just stared at the ceiling, not knowing what to say, not wanting to contemplate a scenario what no earthly weapon would forge any headway against a superior fire power.

  5

  JANET FINALLY BROKE THE SILENCE, MAKING A request which rang of at least something that could be done, instead of waiting for the inevitable, “Agent Woods, do you want me to call the Assistant Director and let him contact the necessary pers
onnel, or do you?”

  Agent Woods replied, “This is what I suggest we do. While Captain Sterno takes me to see one of the sites, I’ll call my boss and tell him what’s going on down here.

  “Harry, I need you to cheek if OIA radar can somehow be modified for infrared input and, if so, find out what you need to make it happen.

  “Agent Donemore should go with Clare and Al and review the analysis of the dead wild life and soil.

  “Janet, you have to set up a communication room that you and the military can use as a command center.

  “Jeff, if you can help her great, but then you need to get all your cameras, film, pictures, journals and bring them back to a, for lack of a better word, center. We all have cell phones, if anyone finds anything out, call Janet immediately. Janet—find us a more appropriate place to meet. She’ll be calling everyone as to where to meet, otherwise, meet back here at 5:00 p.m. Understood?

  “I’ll let my boss be the one to call the president, which I assume should no longer be put off.”

  Everyone agreed. Agent Woods seemed to have a plan and that was good enough, the urgency in his voice all anyone needed to realize that Earth could be in the ninth inning of a game not scheduled for extra innings.”

  After everyone left the room, Jeff and Janet stood there looking at each other, blank stares on their faces. “Scary scenario Agent Woods is talking about. I assume the military knows how to shoot down a spacecraft the size of a football stadium, but it’ll be my job to clean up wherever it hits. I pray it comes down in a desolate area, as god help everyone if it falls in a city. I can’t imagine the destruction and panic it would cause worldwide,” Janet said.

  “Let’s pray that doesn’t happen. In the meantime, do you want to contact Emergency Management in Orlando and see if they have some kind of communication center? If not, I’m sure my boss would let us use our communication control room at the TV station. It’s in Orlando, has satellite feeds, video and audio conference abilities, helicopter, radar and instant ability to inform a panicked public if necessary.” Jeff seemed to know this was the best option, but left it up to Janet.