one of the brick columns so he could hide behind it if necessary. Surely the stupid landlord wasn't coming back?
He thought furiously. He had left the secret door open upstairs. Damn! He could be in danger.
The air turned cold. His goose-pimples came back. Something was going on. There was no air-conditioning equipment down here to make it cold all of a sudden. Oh, shit! he thought, clutching the camera. The air turned colder still. It was suddenly icy down here!
Something's absorbing the energy! he thought. The landlord isn't doing this, he reasoned quickly: it's too sophisticated for him.
His camera felt damp: condensation. His forehead felt damp: stress.
He looked around in the pitch blackness. Nothing.
A sound. Shit!
He was shaking, unable to see anything, too scared to move. He promised to buy himself some night-sight goggles if he got out of this.
The sound of something inhaling, noisily. Nearby! His eyes were wide open, but saw nothing but blackness. He pressed his back against the brick column.
Something grabbed his face. He cried out and tried to knock it away - but there was nothing there! He swung his arms about but hit nothing but air. He nearly fainted. He grabbed his camera and snapped a picture. Nothing on the preview but empty cellar. He turned quickly and snapped two more: nothing. He could see the stepladder in one. He fought his fear. He snapped a couple of pictures with the infra-red camera, hoping something would show up when the pictures were uploaded. If he survived. He took a deep breath, as quietly as he could.
Spider McCool decided to stay. Something bloody-minded and stubborn had taken over his brain. Terrified he might be, but fear is only a sensation, he told himself. If his number was up, it was up. To heck with it. Nobody was depending on him for anything. He moved away from the brick column into an open space. He snapped flash pictures and watched the preview: nothing. He was still so scared he hardly dared to breathe, but he studiously ignored it. Control. He gritted his teeth and listened carefully. He was determined to find out what was happening.
To his left he caught a glimpse of motion. Turning sharply, he saw nothing. Blackness still. He snapped a shot: empty cellar. Peering into the blackness, he listened carefully and waited impatiently for his eyes to adjust to the darkness after taking flash pictures and looking at the camera's preview screen so much.
After a few seconds, he saw a few faint strands of wispy-looking smoke, slightly blue against the blackness, maybe two metres from him, at about waist height. He felt like backing away, but refused to allow it. He breathed in attentively: he couldn't smell any smoke.
The strands of whatever-it-was seemed to be collecting together: clumping slowly, forming a shape.
How can I see this? he asked himself. There's no light source in here. Everything else is totally dark. He felt the controls on his camera and switched off the flash. He set the exposure to manual, f1.8, 2 seconds. He hoped it would be enough. Standing very still, he aimed the camera at the smoke, and took the shot. He looked at the preview: nothing. He changed the exposure to 10 seconds and tried again: nothing. He changed the exposure back to 5 seconds. He took a quick shot with the infra-red camera, then set its exposure to 5 seconds as well and took another. He would look at the results later.
He waited for his eyes to adjust back to the darkness. The smoke was now clearly visible, glowing its strange bluish colour, and forming some roughly spherical shape.
He edged towards it, shaking again, but still refusing to allow the fear to dominate him. He reached out a hand - unable to see it even with the bluish glow - and passed it through the smoke: he felt nothing, and, strangely, his hand remained completely invisible even as it must have been passing through that illuminated space. The smoke did not respond but continued gathering, giving the appearance of solidifying.
He thought: ectoplasmic materialisation? There's no such thing. Fraud. But he couldn't see how this could be faked. Anyway it wasn't solid. He hadn't felt any material. Nothing was 'materialising' in this space, unless it really was some kind of smoky substance. He blew at it: no reaction. Not real smoke.
It began to form a recognisable head: his head. It was about 20 degrees tilted from the horizontal, and tipped towards him slightly as well. The neck just faded out. His body baulked, but he edged closer still, and bent down to look more closely. It still looked smoky, and he felt he could have seen through it if it wasn't so dark in here. He snapped another time-exposure with each camera.
He reached his hand up carefully and again tried to feel the object. Again, he couldn't feel anything, and he couldn't see his hand in the darkness: the bluish glow illuminated nothing.
It isn't really there, he thought. It must be in my mind, somehow. Telepathy. Or an illusion.
Or... C. His mind might be the only thing around here that could possibly detect it. The blue glow would be dark light: visible only in his mind with C. It wouldn't illuminate his hand or anything else in this world.
His goose-pimples came up once more this night. This... thing... wasn't a ghost. It was a dark alien! This could be our two species' first contact! Or at least, the first time a human would have known what was going on. He felt a burden of responsibility. What should he say? Did it know he was here? Would it 'hear' him with C?
"H... Hello," he said quietly. It turned a little and looked 'up' at him. He gulped and his eyes opened wide with shock. It had heard him. The hair on the back of his neck was standing up.
"Wh... what are you doing here?" he asked it, a bit stupidly.
Its mouth moved slowly, as if the creature was struggling to use this unfamiliar body. "I," it hissed quietly, "am a psychic investigator..."
###
Personal Note from the Author
Thank you for reading this short story. I hope you liked it. I haven't written much as yet but may publish more. It takes me ages to write a story as I have to go earn a living too, but I will put them online as and when they are written. In the meantime, you can see what's happening on my blog, where I give my views on all sorts of stuff, mostly not related to sci-fi, as it happens:
https://www.alphatucana.co.uk
You might also like to follow me on Twitter, at:
https://www.twitter.com/alphatucana
Martin Thompson
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