Annula – First Pages

Chapter 1

The Emergence

 

Roswell, New Mexico

May 1 – 11:47 p.m. MDT

 

Trooper Sam Bayless sensed a strangeness in the night air as he patrolled a desolate stretch of Highway 70 that ran north and south through Roswell, New Mexico. A feeling of death was in the desert atmosphere. A cop’s intuition often made him take notice of an abnormal awareness like this one, now visited on him on this darkest of nights. Effective policemen depended on such sensory gifts even when they portended possible bad things to follow.

He downed the last swallow of his tepid coffee and decided to get a refill at Millie’s place just a few miles down the pike. Millie Parker’s Silver Spur Diner was open twenty-four hours and, on quiet nights like this, looking at Millie’s appealing figure was a sight more interesting than driving past an endless, cold desert wilderness at 70 miles an hour. Besides, Millie made the best coffee in the southwest. Juan Valdez might be the best coffee bean selector in the world, but Millie Parker did something with his beans that was so addicting it was dangerously close to being classified as a controlled substance. Sam could already taste a cup of her hot, Colombian brew.

Sam’s shoulder radio blared to life, breaking his pleasant thoughts.

“41-18, we’ve got a report of some activity at the old Walker Army Airfield. Some kind of bright blue light is coming from one of the closed-up hangars,” said a woman’s voice over the radio’s speaker. “Probably just some kids partying.”

Sam pressed his radio’s mike button.

“Copy that. I’m on the way,”

Sam’s Chevy Tahoe made a u-turn and sped away south down the lightless highway, his vehicle’s headlights creating a navigable tunnel in the blackness.

Minutes later, Sam pulled onto the road leading to the main gate of the long-abandoned army air force facility, which the government had closed decades ago. It was still a magnetic place that drew all breeds of crazoids who maintained that a UFO with aliens had landed near there in June of 1947, and that the government had gathered whatever had landed, took it to the air field, and covered everything up. Hard core UFO investigators still believed the remains of that incident secretly lay buried somewhere at the base.

Sam stopped his SUV at the high anchor-chain gate, climbed out and opened it with a special key given to the police for any emergency entry. The rusty hinges squealed in the dry desert cold as Sam opened the gate enough to allow his car to pass into the complex.

Headlight-lit tumbleweed rolled across the abandoned airstrips like giant, skeletal bowling balls and gusts of night-chilled wind howled between the buildings. The destitute hangars that once housed some of America’s most secret weapons now stood eerily silent and unguarded, their great identifying numbers chipped and fading. Long-outmoded military vehicles remained here and there in rusty shambles. Old barracks and office buildings built in the ‘40s seemed to be held up only by their stubborn coats of peeling paint. An observation tower, rising high above the other structures, now searched the horizon with dimmed window-eyes for her lost airborne children who were never coming home.

It remained a lonely memorial to a time that once was. A time when America’s greatest generation proudly served; a place that once housed a nation’s best in its fight against the oppressive enemies of the world. Silent now; reverent, a Flanders Fields of headstones composed of antiquated wartime structures.

Hangar 81, at the far end of the base, seemed to have a strange, undulating glow emanating from its skylight windows situated thirty feet above its immense internal cavity. The glow was bluish and flickering, like that made by a welding arc. As Sam moved closer to the hangar, slivers of the glow spilled onto the walkway outside through open slits in a heavily boarded-up personnel door on the side of the building. With some effort, Sam managed to pry off enough boards to gain access to the inside.

The source of the intense light flared out from beneath a mothballed World War Two truck. The “deuce-and-a-half,” as the two and a half ton M35 military vehicle was known, suddenly sprang to life, its engine roared and its lights pierced the dusty dark of its spacious tomb. A moment passed, then the huge truck moved forward about twenty feet and stopped. Its lights went out and its engine shut down. The blue glow was clearer now and unobstructed by the vehicle. It was coming from a crack in the concrete floor that widened with each passing second.

Another crack crept across the floor and intersected the first fissure, followed by several others. The floor erupted like some psychedelic volcano spewing rays of intense blue light instead of red lava. Large chunks of concrete rose from the ground and fell away from the center of the eruption. A huge elliptical object like the King Kong of Easter eggs was rising from beneath the foundation of the hangar, pushing up and dropping masonry and dirt all around its glossy white shell as it ascended. It hovered and stopped a few feet above the floor.

Sam stood, frozen in place like a hypnotized spectator at an atomic bomb test, his eyes wide and glued to the giant egg.

The intensity of the blue light diminished to a cool, neon-like glow and an oval hatch on the underside of the enormous egg-thing popped open. A round column of amber light shot straight down from the hatch with a throbbing noise coming from inside the gargantuan egg. In seconds, the amber column disappeared and in its place stood what looked like the silhouette of a tall, slender man, his face obscured by shadows. He stepped out from under the still-glowing egg and turned to face it. He made a small gesture with his hand and the egg closed its hatch, lowered to the floor and came to rest among the broken pieces of concrete. The blue glow from the floor blinked out and all activity ceased around the silhouetted man-figure.

The white beam of a flashlight shone from the personnel door of the hangar. The man-like figure turned around to see its origin and stared at the awe-struck face of Sam Bayless framed in the open doorway. He walked toward Sam, who fumbled for his service pistol and ultimately got its barrel leveled at the man-figure in his flashlight’s beam.

“I’m a police officer. Identify yourself!” Sam bellowed.

The man-figure stopped and faced Sam from ten yards away. Sam’s flashlight and gun suddenly flew in opposite directions and crashed violently into the gray concrete walls on two sides of the hangar. Tiny bolts of lightning danced in the eyes of the man-figure. The glow from his eyes illuminated Sam in an eerie blue light and began to levitate the trooper several feet upward, then propelled him rapidly forward until his body smashed against the far wall of the hangar like an exploding balloon spewing red paint. In the faint blue light, Sam’s barely-recognizable remains slowly oozed down the wall toward the floor.

The alien visitor walked to Sam Bayless’s mutilated body and gripped his remaining arm. A second later the alien became a perfect clone of the uniformed police officer. He walked in the near-darkness to the open door of the building and exited Hangar 81. He closed the door and replaced the boards that had moments ago barricaded the entry by seemingly willing them mentally into their original nailed places. He plodded on in the pitch-black night directly to Sam’s police SUV and got into the driver’s seat, his arms hanging at his sides.

The police radio came to life.

“41-18, have you reached the airfield?” the dispatcher asked. “Sam, are you there? Give us your 20 please.”

The converted man-figure stared at the radio for a second. The radio burst into flames and went dead.

The car’s engine turned over and started with a low roar and its headlights snapped on without the driver touching anything in the vehicle. The driver placed his hands on the steering wheel and the SUV pulled out onto the nearby road and headed toward the entrance gate of the Roswell complex. The wind whined outside the car and blew debris across the road that danced before the car’s headlights.

The empty guardhouse and gate loomed before the rapidly approaching vehicle containing the mysterious figure. The gate that had blown partially closed now magically moved aside and permitted the SUV to continue out of the base without the slightest pause in the car’s speed.

The driver steered the car across the road, turned it perpendicular to the gate, and stopped for a final look at the abandoned base. His handsome face clearly shone from the ample dashboard illumination. It was the face of Sam Bayless. The face then suddenly glowed blue for a moment, just like the light under the giant egg-craft. Tiny lightning bolts danced in his piercing eyes as his mouth hinted at a reluctant smile. Hangar 81 behind him suddenly exploded as if a 1000-pound, blockbuster bomb had made a direct hit on it.

The SUV drove on down the road into the black emptiness of the desert night. The bar lights on the roof of the police car lit sequentially and cycled for a few seconds, and then went out. Bolts of lace-like electrical charges danced on the roof of the cruiser.

Far-off, silent lightning flashed about in a black ominous sky, portending a coming storm.

*     *     *

The Silver Spur Diner
Roswell, New Mexico

May 2 – 7:28 a.m.

 

Millie Parker watched Sam Bayless as he entered the Silver Spur diner and took a seat at the counter. She thought it odd that he didn’t sit in the last booth in the back corner of the place, an unoccupied table so often favored by the town’s popular policeman that almost all the eatery’s regulars avoided it and believed it to be Sam’s perpetual reserved seat. The café’s other booths were nearly filled to capacity with a weekday breakfast crowd, mostly men in all manner of dress from western work clothes to business attire. A lady sat with a young boy of about ten, who diligently worked at destroying the napkin dispenser.

A man in his twenties, wearing a Tampa Bay Devil Ray baseball hat, signaled to Millie for his check. Millie gestured to a blonde waitress that her customer Hank wanted to check out. The blonde pulled a wad of checks from her apron pocket, sorted out Hank’s, and laid it on his table with a smile. The young workman rose from his booth and dropped a couple of dollars on the table, picked up his check, and headed for the cashier at the front door of the diner.

Millie smiled at seeing Sam and ambled his way.

“Well, there’s our star policeman,” she said as she faced him across the counter. She wondered why, instead of replying with one of his typical witty remarks, he studied her name badge.

“Got a menu, …Millie?” Sam asked, emphasizing her name.

Millie looked puzzled. Her smile faded.

“Why, listen to you, Sam Bayless. A menu? You know everything we serve here. Right down to the peach cobbler and the cheese grits. Now what’ll it be?”

“Um…coffee.”

“Coming up.”

Millie stepped to the stainless coffer urn and filled a mug with near-boiling black brew.

“Here you go, fresh and hot,” Millie said and placed the mug in front of Sam along with two coffee creamers and a small bowl of sugar packets. “I’d be a lot fresher myself if I didn’t volunteer to work doubles as often as I do.”

Sam lifted the mug and took a long drink from the steaming hot beverage and replaced the mug on the counter. Millie knitted her eyebrows and gently shook her head.

“When did you start drinking your coffee black?

“Sometimes I like to do things different.”

“Uh-huh,” Millie said and strode into the kitchen.

At the range top, Harlon Murphy was busy tending to hash brown potatoes on the crackling hot grill. Between chopping and stirring items on the steel surface, he lifted platters up onto an eye-level stainless steel shelf and pulled down order tickets clipped to a wire above the shelf.

“Sam Bayless just asked me for a menu,” Millie said low to Harlon.

“What? He knows that menu better than I do,” Harlon said and flipped several sausage patties on the grill and chopped a pile of onions with a stainless steel spatula.

“That’s what I thought. Maybe he’s got a touch of dementia.”

“He’s not old enough to have dementia.”

“It can hit you at any age. Why, I heard Agnes Bridges started leaving her car keys in the refrigerator, and she’s only forty-six.”

“He’s probably got a lot on his mind with all the nutso tourists coming here for the UFO convention. That alone will knock the hamster off your brain’s exercise wheel.”

Millie walked back into the dining room and was surprised to find that Sam Bayless had left the counter, the remainder of his coffee untouched. She signaled another waitress and mimed that she was going outside to have a cigarette. Millie swept through the kitchen and out the open back door and lit up a Marlboro. She jumped from the loading dock and meandered to a picnic table fifty feet away shaded by a spreading broadleaf maple. She sat on the table top with her feet on the bench seat. Her thoughts went to the day’s encounter with Sam Bayless and she reviewed the morning scene as she puffed on her cigarette. Something hadn’t been right about Sam, a man she knew well. He sat at the counter instead of his personal booth, asked for a menu, didn’t use his creamers or sugar, and slugged down black coffee hot enough to hard boil an egg.

Something weird was going on. And she was sure it didn’t have anything to do with the UFO convention.

*     *     *

The Silver Spur Diner’s parking lot had nearly filled to capacity with vehicles from its morning patrons. Annula felt his new Earthly identity of the New Mexico policeman was going well. The human persona gave him the ability to eat, drink, and talk like the individual he had shape-shifted into. He was pleased with most of that, but that bitter coffee was not going to be a favorite.

Annula returned to Sam Bayless’s police cruiser and climbed behind the wheel. When he looked into his rear view mirror he was shocked to see a very familiar individual in the back seat.

“Lucifer,” Annula said, “so thrilling to see you. Still in your athletic he-man Hank Sparks disguise, I see.”

“It has always worked well for every occasion. Sinners love the hat.”

Lucifer tipped the brim of his Tampa Bay Devil Rays baseball cap.

“And you now in a catchy policeman’s getup,” Lucifer said.

“How long ago has it been?” Annula asked. “A few millennia now?”

“Time flies when you’re an archangel,” Lucifer said and got out of rear of the car and moved to the front passenger seat. “The big question is, how did you get here, and what are you doing in my realm?”

“I grew so weary of Neptune and decided to travel where the action is more exciting. Some very kind space travelers offered me a ride and I accepted. They unfortunately died on their spacecraft’s shoddy landing.”

“Surely you don’t think I’m going to allow you to destroy what I’ve built on Earth.”

“You’re no different than I. An outcast with no roots in a real home.”

“I was given complete domain here directly from our former employer. And you were given a place of your very own.”

“Come, come, Lucifer. There is nothing for me to destroy on Neptune. And I mean nothing. The planet was already an ugly molten blob at birth. A carpenter fashions things from wood. A liar like you deceives others into following you like brainwashed puppies. I am a destroyer. I need to demolish things, especially things blessed by our former employer.”

“Do you think destroying Godly things will give you a satisfactory sense of revenge for your banishment?”

“I’m willing to give that idea a serious try.”

“Not on my Earth,” Lucifer said inches from Annula’s transformed face. “And not with that persona you’ve adopted. I knew Sam Bayless well and many others at that diner. I come here often. They all know me as a construction foreman named Hank Sparks. I have been hard-working to bring several of the more depraved patrons into my fold.”

“Well, as I’m sure you already know, you can forget about Officer Bayless. I had a brief meeting with him. My very first act of destruction. It was exhilarating to be back at my craft.”

“Don’t get all giddy yet, Annula. Go find somewhere else to ply your twisted trade.”

“Why? I like it here. I can find my kind of work here. Look. See that diner over there?”

Annula lowered his window and glared at the Silver Spur some fifty yards away. In seconds the building’s shiny metal façade exploded and shot large sheets of debris into the air, spinning across the parking lot like huge thin steel Frisbees, crashing onto the tops of many of the vehicles.

For several moments Annula hung at the driver’s side open window and watched the fiery event with childlike fascination.

 “Just look at that, Annula said with a broad smile. “My powers work better here than at anywhere on that dismal Neptune. What do you think, Lucifer?”

Annulla turned to the passenger seat of the car. His beaming smile instantly changed to a deep scowl.

Lucifer had vanished, but Annula sensed he would run into him again.

*     *     *

Towson, Maryland

May 2 – 7:20 p.m.

Retired homicide detective Mike Watkins took special notice to an evening news report on his television. A police officer in Roswell, New Mexico was missing. The officer’s name was Sam Bayless, a man Mike had met and worked with in his Forensic Education Program a year earlier. Sam had been an impressive class attendee, a man Mike believed would soon be a valuable asset to any police force.

Mike called the Roswell State Police to obtain some inside details on the case, information denied to the media in any current and ongoing investigation.

“This is Detective Lieutenant Mike Watkins formerly with the Maryland State Police,” Mike said to the Roswell Captain of Detectives.

“Hi, Mike,” Frank Ellison said. “I remember you from the seminar on forensics you taught here last year. Great class, I might add. Even an old duffer like me learned a lot about new law enforcement techniques.”

“Thank you, Frank. Appreciate the good thoughts. I’m fully retired now and don’t know what to do with myself.”

“The first thing you do is lock up your gun.”

“Yeah, yeah. I know what they say about retired cops. What I called you about is Sam Bayless.”

“He was in our classes too when you were here.”

“He was and made a good impression on me about his future. I just heard about the missing incident report. The story was picked up by our local TV newscasts.”

“We sent him out an old army airfield. The one that was involved in that alien spaceship flap back in the forties. Lotta kids hang out there and party and we received noise complaints from several of the nearby residents. Sam radioed that he was on his way there, and that was the last we ever heard from him.”

“What happened to his cruiser?”

“Good question. When we got there, his Tahoe SUV was gone. And so was Sam. We searched everywhere, believe me.”

“Could he have been inside a building?” Mike asked.

“They’ve been boarded up tight for a long time. Wanted to keep the party kids and the UFO nuts out. We saw no signs of entry into any of them. One of the old hangars had been recently blown up. If he doesn’t turn up soon, we may have to revisit that airfield and dig a little deeper.”

“You have my number, Frank. Keep me in the loop.”

“You bet, Mike. Stay well and lock up that gun.”

“Okay, mom,” Mike said and ended the call.

Mike mulled over the missing person case and the cop instinct in him concluded,

A police officer the caliber of a Sam Bayless doesn’t turn up missing. He turns up something far more dire.