Aliens Landed in Ballykilduff
And Other Strange Stories
Gerrard Wilson
Copyright 2014 by Gerrard Wilson
Aliens Landed in Ballykilduff
And Other Strange Stories
Aliens Landed in Ballykilduff
Aliens Landed in Ballykilduff Poem
Bolf
Twenty-Three
The Haunted House
I Caught Bird Flu
It’s Waiting Especially For You
Stone the Crows
Live a Full Life
The Fertilizer Song
Aliens Landed in Ballykilduff
Aliens landed in Ballykilduff,
Aliens landed; that is a fact,
In the dark of the night it happened, it did,
At the end of my garden they landed, then hid.
I was lying in bed, sleeping soundly one night, when something, a noise outside my bedroom widow woke me with a start. Sitting up in bed, I said, “What on earth was that?” However, despite listening intently I heard nothing else. Lying down again, I pulled the bed clothes tightly around me. “Brrr,” I said, shivering from the cold, “it feels more like winter than summer.” Pulling the bed clothes higher around me, I said, “This global warming thing, they keep telling us about, sure is cold. “With those words on my lips I fell fast asleep.
A few minutes the same noise woke me again. Rubbing my sleepy eyes, I said, “What on earth can it be?” Sitting up, I yawned, trying to figure it out. Scratching my head, I leaned over to the clock. Grabbing hold of it, I gazed it the dial. “It’s a quarter to four!” I grizzled. Scratching my head some more, I said, “Whoever is making that noise could have picked a better time in which to do it.”
Then I heard it again; the same noise, followed by the sound of banging and hammering. “Surely the neighbours aren’t fixing their car at this ungodly hour!” I groaned. “It has been giving them some trouble of late, but fixing it now, at a quarter to four in the morning, is going too far, so it is!”
The banging and hammering noises grew steadily louder. “It can’t be them, can it?” I growled. Getting out of bed, I shuffled across to the window. Pulling the curtains apart, I gazed outside, to their back garden. It was shrouded in darkness. “Well, it certainly ain’t them,” I said thankfully, “unless they can see in the dark.” Abandoning the curtain, I returned to bed.
I had only just laid my head on the pillow when the banging and hammering started again. Jumping out of bed, I groaned, “Will someone please tell me what is going on around here?”
Awakening from her slumbers, my wife, Breda, said, “What are you doing, Gerrard, standing at the end of the bed, ranting like a mad man?”
“I am sorry,” I answered. “I didn’t mean to awaken you.”
“Well, you did a good job of doing it,” she sarcastically replied. “What has you so worked up, anyhow?” she asked.
“It’s that noise,” I told her.
“Noise – what noise?”
“It was there a minute ago – honest it was.”
“Well, it’s not now!” she snapped. “Come to bed. You were probably having a dream.”
“More like a nightmare,” I grumbled. Approaching the widow, I pulled back the curtain, hoping to see the perpetrator going about his foul business. However, our garden, like our neighbour’s was shrouded in darkness.
“Forget about it,” Breda said to me. “On the morrow, we will go outside and see if anything is amiss. Meanwhile, get into bed lest you catch your death of cold!”
“Global warning, they keep telling us,” I said, grumbling about the weather.
“I’ll ‘global warming’ you if you don’t hush up and let me sleep!” she answered.
Suddenly, as I was letting go of the curtain an extraordinary bright flash outside secured my undivided attention.
Rubbing the windowpane with my pyjama jacket sleeve, trying to see better, I searched for the light. “It’s gone!” I said dejectedly. Then I saw it again, the same brilliant white light flashing at the end garden. “Wow!” I exclaimed. “It’s back – and it’s so bright!”
“If you don’t shut up,” Breda warned, “I will get out of this bed and–”
“Okay, okay, I can take a hint,” I said, trying to calm her growing annoyance with me.
“Hint?” she fumed. “Get into this bed this instant or go into the garden and check out that ‘mysterious’ light of yours! Just let me sleep; I’m beat!”
“Go into the garden?” I squeaked, suddenly feeling afraid.
“Or get into bed,” she told me. “The choice is yours.
“But...”
“I’m warning you,” she snapped. “It’s late of the night!”
Biting the proverbial bullet, I said, “Okay, I will go out there, into the garden, and see what it is.”
Breda never answered me, because she had already fallen fast asleep.
Donning my dressing gown, I picked up my slippers and crept silently out of the bed room. Pulling the door closed behind me, I put on my slippers and headed for the kitchen. Turning on the light, I gazed at the clock on the kitchen wall. It was three fifty. “Am I mad, doing this, going outside on my own at so late of the hour?” I asked myself. Just then, another bright flash outside caught my attention. “No, I am not mad!” I barked defiantly. “There is something out there and I am going to find out just what it is!”
Opening the drawer adjacent the sink, I searched for the flashlight. “Now, where is it?” I said. “I am sure I saw it in here the other day, when I was looking for the hammer. (I have a habit of depositing items in this drawer, with the aim of having them close at hand the next time I might need them). “Ah, there it is!” I said triumphantly. Grabbing hold of the torch, I pressed the switch. “Drats!” I hissed. “The batteries are flat!” Delving a hand into the drawer, I searched for some fresh batteries. “I am sure I saw some batteries in here a few days ago, when I was searching for the saw.” Spotting a pack of fresh batteries to the rear of the drawer, I said, “They will do nicely, so they will.” Unscrewing the end of the torch, I emptied it of spent batteries and then replaced them with new.
Pressing the switch on the torch, I marvelled at its bright beam. “It never ceases to amaze me,” I said, wondrously admiring the bright light, “that a few nondescript batteries can contain so much power.” Approaching the back door, I turned the key in the lock, then, pulling it open, I stepped silently outside.
Turning up my dressing gown collar, to ward off the chill of the night, I stepped onto the garden path. Making my way slowly along it, I shone the torch this way and that, around the garden, in case someone was lurking nearby. “What if this is some sort of a practical joke?” I asked. “It could be my brother Tony. Yes, it could easily be him. This is the typical of the sort thing he comes up with, from time to time, to scare people. He says it’s funny. “I’ll ‘funny’ him, so I will, if he is behind this!” Hearing a snap, as if someone had trodden on a dry trig, I stopped dead in my tracks.
Shinning the torch in the direction the noise, I searched for the culprit. “Come out from behind that tree!” I ordered. “I have a Taser, so I have,” I lied. “Moreover, I am willing to use it. Show yourself!”
The sound of another twig snapping put me on high alert. Then I heard another twig snapping, and another and another. Thinking, fearing that some person or persons unknown were about to exit the shadows, hell-bent on thrashing the day lights out of me for daring to threaten them, so, I feared for my life. Cowering down low, trying to blend into the shadows, I waited for them to a
ppear.
Then I saw it; emerging from out of the shadows, Sam, our next door neighbour’s Labrador dog. Waddling towards me, wagging its tail in friendly greeting, it posed me no threat. Patting him on the head, I said, “What are you going in here? You gave me one hell of a fright, you know! Patting him some more, I shone the torch at the boundary fence, trying to see where he had passed through. Spotting the place, a hole in it, I shepherded Sam to it. Pushing him gently through the hole, into his own garden, I said “I will fix this tomorrow. Meanwhile, I will put this planter into the hole. It should be enough to keep you in there until I fix it tomorrow.”
Suddenly, another bright light flashing at the end of the garden reminded me as to why I was there. Returning to the path I made a beeline towards the end of the garden.
The closer I got to the end of the garden, the more I thought the light was not actually in it. “I think it’s in the field beyond the garden,” I said to myself.
As I approached the end of the garden, another flash of sent me diving for cover. “This is the weirdest thing that I have ever seen,” I mused. As I lay