SODIUM:1 Harbinger

  Chapter 7

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  As we sat by the fire, Bull had a worried look on his face. It was something 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. And that had happened quickly, so he didn’t have time to dwell on what might happen and how defenseless he was at the time.

  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. Those were the same thoughts that I had most of the time in my daily life, 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. We settled in on calling them demons because of their red, glowing eyes, until such time as we knew different.

  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, 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. Once my reaction from the initial fear 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 that it was not her that was responsible for Kyle missing. It was the demon. It was 3AM 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 fearful. 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 in 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.

  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 midafternoon. 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 that 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 half an 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 that 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 instead 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 that it was not good for me to be running myself ragged out here when there were much more qualified people that could be summoned. I was not about to let that little thought out, though, so I tried to convince him that 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 that the longer it took, the less likely it was that there would be a good outcome for Kyle, if he was even still alive at that point.

  We reached Wapama Falls about noon. We pulled out one of the tarps and stretched and tied it between four trees. It was angled to allow the rain to run off the downhill 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 that I had been saving for myself. It was an unusual move for me as selfishness generally dominated my reasoning. I believe that was the first moment I began to care more about the others than mys
elf. 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 that the sooner we moved, 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 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 trailhead that would take us back up to Lake Eleanor. 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 this 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 that 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, and it had been caught out in the open. It was like nothing I had seen before. It was silvery in color and stood on three spindly legs. It was also not an animal but instead a mechanical beast.

  Since the suspected Roswell crash in 1947, I had always been fascinated with the possibility of alien life being out there. It was just a fascination, and I never dreamed I would one day be looking at something from another world.

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

  Bull speculated that perhaps it belonged to the military, or some secret lab, but I was confident that 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. We knew that mechanical things still required a human brain to operate in anything more than a simple straight line or pattern. This beast did not have a human brain, and it was unlike anything we had ever seen.

  I then began to think about the dead animals that we had seen. It suddenly popped into my mind that if I was going to explore an alien world, I would probably do the same. If I had such an ability, I would send out a probe to gather as much information as I could.

  At that moment I had no doubt in my mind that 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 that Bull was right and that we needed to make every effort to find Kyle.

  What if he was still alive and this thing was preparing to dissect him? What if it had just taken him prisoner and was going to take him back to its own planet? Was there a mother ship 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 fascination. It was like every scary story I had read where you knew the person should not go down into the dark basement, but for some reason they just had to look.

  As we stood staring at the beast, Bull turned and looked at me. He knew that I now knew we had to go ahead to try to find Kyle. He knew that 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 that 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. The legs had three joints aside from the ones 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 sure 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. At least 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 backwards in order to look upwards to any degree. We would later speculate that this might give us an advantage, if we could somehow attack it from above.

  As Bull watched, the eyes of the beast protruded slightly and then turned in opposite directions. One of the eyes then turned downward as if looking at the rocks it was standing on, while the other eye turned back toward us. Then, as if moving like a gazelle, it turned and ran 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 for the past twenty-four hours, only to get onto a roller coaster. But at least I was no longer pining for home. This was an adventure, and even though it involved grave danger, I was somehow drawn to continue.

  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 Lake Eleanor. We would also have to deal with the heavy rains, 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 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 valley 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 defendable 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 that I was glad that 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 in the cold. 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 that 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 decided the red tarp gave 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, so Bull advised that two of us should sleep while the other two did 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.

  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. I wanted to ponder just how we might take advantage of it.

  If Bull thought they ran on diesel fuel, I wanted to know so I could scheme about how to take out their supply. And if Susi... well, I pretty much knew what Susi was probably thinking about. Her thoughts would have been about Kyle. Was he alive and held captive, or had the demon done its worst?

  As I stared into the darkness with my shift almost over, 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 it 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. I 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 that it was indeed approaching us. We were a hundred feet from the wall and two hundred feet from the creek.

  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 passed first, followed by the other. As they moved 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 wanted to know the answers to all of those questions.

  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 that 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 it. And hear 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!

  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. But it seemed it was our lucky night. A decent-sized rotten branch on a nearby tree cracked and then fell to the forest floor with a wet thud.

  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 had last seen them.

  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 that 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.