Monthly Archives: November 2013

While I normally put in a lot of  internal links to previous, related posts here, I won’t be doing that for what I hope will be thirty NaNoWriMo posts. If you have jumped into or stumbled onto this story in mid-adventure, there are plenty of other ways to navigate around the site to find previous installments. Actually doing so is left as an exercise to the student.

I find that it’s easiest to write using locations and setting that I’m at least a bit familiar with, especially if I’ve got pictures that I can review to help set the location in my head so that I can describe it better. Fortunately I travel a lot and (have you noticed) I take a lot of pictures! For example, we were in Denver, Manitou Springs, and Pikes Peak in 2008, and I live in Los Angeles. On the other hand, while some landmark & public places will get used (for example, the LA Zoo and Griffith Park in chapter two), most specific places are fictional (the Golden Horseshoe Motel and Pikes Peak Fine Chocolate & Confectionery Emporium in Manitou Springs).

I’m also finding that it’s sometimes tough to keep telling the story in third person. I think my natural writing style tends to gravitate toward first person, and given the nature of the action (and other factors) it often sounds in my head like it should be a gumshoe detective, noir story. But it’s not. I have a pretty clear tone and story destination in mind for this story and it really needs to be told from a more dispassionate, impersonal, outside viewpoint. That, of course, will be another thing to go through and “smooth out” in the next draft.

For now, onward fellow word herders! Time to see what new obstacles we can throw in front of our plucky hero!

CHAPTER FIVE

“When?” Tom asked anxiously. Despite spending his entire adult life with a well-earned reputation for being slow, methodical, and stodgy, he found that this odd journey that had been thrust upon him seemed to require almost reckless haste in its pursuit. Somehow he had grabbed a tiger by the tail.

“Are you staying here in town, or up in Denver?” Ellen asked.

“Here, down at the Golden Horseshoe Motel for tonight.”

“The Horseshoe, eh? You should have gone to the Manitou Manor Motel next door, they have better wi-fi and the owner there is a friend. Anyway, let me get in touch with my staff to make sure that the store’s covered for a few days. Unless there’s some ongoing disaster that I’m not aware of, we should be able to take off in the morning. Let’s say I’ll meet you here at 9:00 unless you hear otherwise from me.”

Tom took a moment to make sure that Ellen had his phone number and the room number at the motel. Ellen gave him her contact information in return, which Tom carefully wrote down on the back of his aunt’s picture. Tom paid for the hot chocolate and also bought boxes of chocolate to have sent to each of his kids.

“Do you have a car?” Ellen asked.

“Yes, I picked up a rental in Denver. It’s at the motel. I just walked down to the police station and back to here so I could see the town.”

“Did it come with chains and do you know how to drive in the snow?”

“It did and I do. My wife and I used to go up to Big Bear and Mammoth all the time to go skiing. Why?”

“There’s a system moving in and we’ll get snow overnight. You’ll be driving tomorrow, if that’s all right with you. My car hasn’t run well enough in months to take on a trip like that. I don’t drive it any further than I want to walk back. I just wanted to make sure that you could handle what Colorado can throw at you this time of year.”

“No problem. I’ll pick you up about nine o’clock. Care to tell me where we’ll be going?”

“I’d rather not say right now. We’ll be driving for most of the day, assuming we don’t get slowed down too much by the snow. It’s about five hundred miles, but it’s out in the middle of nowhere with no way to fly there unless you have your own plane, so we’ll do it the old fashioned way. Will that fit in with your travel schedule?”

“I’ll be okay for now,” Tom said. “I packed for four days just in case and we can figure something out if it goes longer. Anything else I’ll need or need to know?”

“Not that I can think of right now. I’ll text or call if there is. I’ll see you in the morning.”

As Tom stepped back out onto the sidewalk he was hit by a frigid blast. As Ellen had predicted, the sky was starting to fill with heavy grey clouds and the wind had picked up considerably. Even though it was technically still over an hour before sunset, the tall mountains on all sides left the town in deep shadow and the street lights had turned on.

Tom hustled back to his motel. Once in his room he sent a bland and brief message to his pet sitter regarding his travel plans and another to Jason regarding “the motorcycle”. Ellen was right, the wi-fi connection here was worse than he had seen anywhere in years, but it at least got that simple job done.

The front desk clerk was happy to direct him to one of the family restaurants nearby. Tom walked there and had a wonderful dinner. The meal had far more starch and meat than he was used to, but Tom had to admit that it tasted good. Given the recent stresses in his life, he was not going to feel guilty even if he had pie and ice cream for dessert. As he walked back to the motel following dinner, the first wisps of snow were starting to fall.

Back in his room, Tom checked the weather forecast for tomorrow. They were only supposed to get two or three inches of snow at the most down here, although there would be a lot more at higher elevations. But this was a small storm by the region’s standards. The weather guy on the local news broadcast didn’t seem too excited, so Tom wasn’t going to sweat it either.

What did bother him was the possible event that had occurred in Ellen’s store as they were talking. If he hadn’t seen the video from his house two days ago, he would have simply written off the cat’s behavior as Ellen had, assuming that they had simply seen a stoned cat spacing out on catnip. With his new perspective Tom was far more nervous about what they had seen, wondering what invisible activity might have been going this time. Even more worrisome, they still had no idea if it these events were dangerous, even though they seemed to be happening in close proximity to him.

That might be another question that needed answering. Were these “events” happening all over the place, or just around Tom? Tom was well aware of how a selection bias could skew interpretation of data, especially when the data set was extremely small. But if these events were dangerous, actively seeking to get more data introduced a whole new set of hazards and problems.

Tom tried to use the information he had gotten from Ellen to find more information on Auntie Annie’s whereabouts, particularly using the name “Dahlia”. Nothing simple came up and the slow connection prevented him from trying anything not simple. He left it alone for now, hoping that tomorrow’s trip might answer many of those questions on its own.

In the morning Tom was woken up just after 5:00 by the sound of a tractor clearing snow from the hotel parking lot. Peeking out the window, it looked like more than three inches were sitting on top of his car, but the lot was cleared quickly. The streets appeared to have been cleared as well. Tom got ready to go and see what answers Ellen could help him find.

Following a quick breakfast, Tom checked out of the Golden Horseshoe and drove down to Ellen’s chocolate shop. The roads had some snow on them but no ice. Since the plows were coming through regularly and the snow seemed to be letting up, Tom hadn’t bothered to put the chains on yet. He pulled up in front of the store about 8:55. The store was still dark so he settled in to wait.

At 9:05 a young woman pulled up and parked next to him. She ignored his car as she got out and walked up the steps to the porch in front of the store. Once there she pulled out out her keys and unlocked the door. As she entered, she turned the “closed” sign in the window around to “open”. Soon Tom could see lights turning on inside.

After another five minutes with no sign of Ellen, Tom was getting impatient and worried that something had gone wrong. He pulled out his phone and called Ellen’s number. After three rings the call went to a generic voice mailbox

“Hello, Ellen? This is Tom. I’m here in front of the store and it’s about ten after nine. Maybe I got the time or the place wrong, so please give me a call back as soon as you can so that we can get going. Thanks.”

With growing frustration, Tom got out, locked his car, and went into the store. The young lady who had parked next to him was bustling about, bringing out boxes of candy from the back room and restocking displays on the floor. She turned toward the door when he came in.

“Good morning, can I help you?”

“Maybe, I hope so at least,” Tom said. “I came in and talked with Ellen yesterday. We were supposed to meet here this morning at nine o’clock, but I guess I got it wrong since she’s not here. I’ve tried calling her but I just get voice mail. Do you have any other way to get in touch with her?”

The young lady looked at him with a puzzled expression. “I’m sorry, I don’t understand. Who are you again?”

“My name is Tom Tiernan. I’m trying to track down my aunt, who used to live in a commune near here. I went to the police station first and the policeman there suggested that I talk to Ellen, since Ellen’s mother might know my aunt. When I talked to her yesterday, Ellen recognized my aunt’s picture. We were going to drive to see her mother today. But Ellen’s pretty late getting here, so now I’m trying to find another way to get in touch with her.”

The young woman walked past Tom, over to the front windows of the store. Leaning up against the glass, she peered down the street. Pulling back she said, “I don’t know what to tell you, but not a lot of that makes sense. I would help you get in touch with Ms. Summers if I could, but I don’t know where she is.”

“What to do mean, that it doesn’t make sense?” Tom asked. “What part of it is unclear?”

“Ms. Summers called me last night and asked me to work some extra shifts for the next week to cover the store, which was great for me. I can use the hours whenever I can get them. Things have been tight around here, if you know what I mean. But she didn’t say anything about meeting anyone this morning. I didn’t get any details, but it sounded to me like she was leaving right away last evening.”

Tom was trying to make sense of that when his phone started to ring. The caller ID indicated that it was Ellen calling. Tom hit the icon to answer the call.

“Ellen, this is Tom,” he said without preamble. “I’m here at the store waiting for you. Is everything okay?”

“Tom, I don’t know who you are and I’m not Ellen,” said an unknown voice on the other end. “You left a message earlier on my voice mail and I was just calling to let you know that you had a wrong number.”

Tom quickly fished out the picture of his aunt with Ellen’s contact information written on it. “Wait, is this 719-129-3580? That’s the number I was given for Ellen Summers in Manitou Springs.”

“Yes, that’s my number, you dialed it correctly, but I’m not that person and I’m in Colorado Springs, not Manitou. I’m sorry, but somehow you’ve got the wrong number.”

Tom thought about it for a second, but it was starting to become obvious what had happened. “Thank you for calling back,” he told the anonymous caller. “I’m sorry to have bothered you this morning.”

“Good luck finding this Ellen lady,” the caller said as she cut the connection.

The chocolate store saleswoman was looking at Tom as he finished the call. “That was one of the other things that you said that didn’t make sense,” she said. ”Ms. Summers couldn’t possibly have given you her phone number. She doesn’t have a phone.”

Tom held out the photo to her. “What about this? And didn’t you say that she called you last night about covering the store?”

“She called from here, the store has a phone of course,” she explained. “But Ms. Summers doesn’t have a phone.” She took the sheet and looked at the information written on the back. “She doesn’t have an email account either, at least not that I know of. She doesn’t even have an email account on the company website, although the rest of us do. As long as I’ve known her, she’s always been living kind of, what’s the term, ‘off the grid’? It’s weird, but I always figured that it came from her being raised the way that she had been, up in that commune. Plus, it really wasn’t any of my business.”

Tom’s head was starting to pound and adrenaline was beginning to send his pulse soaring. Carefully he said, “Can you tell me where she lives so I can go ask her about this?”

“Oh, no, I don’t think that I should tell you that,” she said, as Tom had expected. “If she didn’t want you to contact her she must have had a reason. But I don’t think it matters. I can see her garage from here and her car’s gone. If it’s really important, I guess you might try to see her here when she gets back in a week or so. Or you could take a hint, if I might say so myself.”

Tom let the last comment slide. Losing his temper right now wouldn’t help him get any more information from this lady and at the moment she was his last potential source of clues regarding was going on. Also, if he made a scene, that nice cop from yesterday might not be so nice today.

“Thank you. But I still need to track down my aunt. Plus, Ellen told me yesterday that her car had been broken for months and couldn’t drive.”

“I don’t know why Ms. Summers would say that. She was always taking long trips and driving all over the place. In fact, she just bought a new four-wheel drive for the winter. She was real proud of it too.”

“I’m starting to wonder if anything she told me was the truth,” Tom said in frustration. “When she saw that picture, Ellen said that she had seen my aunt when she was younger and her mother might know where she is now. You wouldn’t happen to know where Ellen’s mother is, do you?”

“Sorry, but there you go with another thing that just doesn’t make any sense. Ms. Summer’s mother died about a year ago. I remember her being gone for almost a month for the funeral and to take care of her mom’s estate and stuff. It seemed like a long time to spend doing that, but that was about a year ago and I needed the hours so I didn’t ask questions.”

Tom sighed heavily as he folded up the picture and put it back in his pocket. “She told me just last night that I needed to meet her mother. That’s why I was supposed to meet her this morning, so that we could drive there. She said it would be a long drive and I was supposed to pick her up.”

“I don’t know what to tell you, mister. I had heard that her mom used to be in that commune up in the hills there by Cave of the Winds and she raised Ms. Summers there. But when that cult got kicked out, most of them scattered all over the place. A big group was supposed to have moved off to somewhere in New Mexico, there’s lots of odd places and groups out there. Some place up by the Four Corners area, on a reservation of some sort.  I never got told anything since it wasn’t my business, like I said, but I saw some phone calls to New Mexico on the bill when I did the accounting for the store here. Ms. Summers told me they were her personal calls and she paid for them herself. Then when she was gone for the funeral, I saw that number was the one that she called from when she would check in on us.”

“I don’t imagine you could let me have that New Mexico phone number, could you?” asked Tom.

“No way. I’m sorry, but I can’t. It looks a lot like Ms. Summers wasn’t buying what you’re selling, so I’ve already probably said too much. Like I said, not my business, but I do really need the job here, even if it is only part time.”

Tom took out his wallet and plucked out a business card. He circled his phone number and handed it to the saleswoman. “If Ellen calls in or comes back, please tell her I was here and at least give her my name and phone number again. I don’t know what’s going on here and I’m not some psycho or stalker, I just want to find my aunt. I thought that Ellen could help. At the very least, at this point I think I deserve an explanation or an apology from her.”

“I’ll keep the card, mister. I don’t know if she’ll call you back.”

“Thanks.” Tom turned and walked to the door. He stopped with his hand on the knob before turning back to the woman. “What about that big tomcat that was here yesterday? Do you take care of him while she’s gone as well?”

“Do you mean Lucifer? No, Ms. Summers always takes him with her when she goes on one of her trips. That’s another reason I know she’s gone. He’s gone, his travel case is gone, and a bunch of his food isn’t here either.”

Nodding his thanks, Tom went out into the cold. There still wasn’t any sunlight and the day looked like it was going to continue to be gray and snowy. With Manitou Springs now apparently a dead end, Tom got into his car and headed out of town. Alone with his thoughts, he got back on the highway and took it down out of the canyon to the interstate, where he turned south toward New Mexico.

While I normally put in a lot of  internal links to previous, related posts here, I won’t be doing that for what I hope will be thirty NaNoWriMo posts. If you have jumped into or stumbled onto this story in mid-adventure, there are plenty of other ways to navigate around the site to find previous installments. Actually doing so is left as an exercise to the student.

The realization is setting in that this is not a sprint, but a marathon. Good thing I’ve got a little bit of experience there. Getting into that frame of mind will be critical to getting this job done. On the other hand, I’m very pleased to see that I’m averaging over 3,000 words per day, well in excess of the 1,667 word average needed to “win” NaNoWriMo and complete 50,000 words by December 1st. In my head I see this story as 80K to 90K in the zeroth draft to begin with, probably being edited down to 70K or so in the final form, sp it’s good to see that I’m on a solid pace. At least so far. Let’s hope that it’s not like a marathon where I take off and do the first three or four miles at an 8:00 pace when I should be at a 12:00 pace, leaving me to die a horrible, painful death leaving my body to be picked apart by vultures at about mile thirteen. (Stop it! Bad analogy! BAD analogy!)

So, we found out last night that Jason isn’t just a wimpy customer service rep. Instead he’s resourceful and has some unexpected skills. Who knew? Not me. I find when writing that the characters really do come to life and take on characteristics that as the author you didn’t necessarily plan for in advance. But as long as the changes are “right”, it’s all for the good. However, once the first draft is done and you have a good idea of what happens when and who does what and why they did it, then you have to smooth out the differences in how characters act in different scenes so that they’re believable and consistent. That, however, is a problem to be dealt with in the next pass through the manuscript. Now it’s just word-herding, slinging it hot and fast to see what sticks.

CHAPTER FOUR

When Tom checked the flight schedules he found that it was a tossup between competing evils. He could go at a truly uncivilized hour out of LAX on a regular airliner, or he could sleep in more than an hour and go out of Burbank, but on a tiny, regional jet. Or he could leave from either about once an hour if he was willing to change planes in Phoenix or Salt Lake City. His loathing of the wee dark hours and his hatred of the crowds at LAX overcame his distrust of small aircraft. By 7:00 AM he was checking in at Burbank.

In the middle of the night he had woken up wondering if he should even be flying instead of driving. His initial concern was that one of those invisible holes could open up in the plane with unforeseen and probably horrible consequences. After rousing himself enough to worry about it, he realized that logically it didn’t figure that it was a huge danger.

It was extremely unlikely that this was a phenomenon that had just occurred for the very first time, only to be observed by accident. The universe was a big place, so even if the invisible holes were something very recent, there must be more of them occurring, even if Tom and Jason didn’t know how common their appearances were. The holes apparently hadn’t caused any air crashes so far, or any other major disasters. Otherwise they would be in the news, or at least that’s what Tom told himself.

Furthermore, if the holes’ appearances were a common but unknown event, it was even less likely that they would be dangerous to a plane and its passengers. For that matter, Tom didn’t even know if the holes were dangerous at all. The cat had knocked his arm away before he could touch it, but that could have been a complete coincidence. For all Tom knew, there could be fifteen of the holes in his room right now with the only possible clue to their existence being the cat’s mood.

Since they knew nothing good, bad, or otherwise, the best course was to just plow ahead and try to get some facts. Freaking out over every boogie man that his subconscious could come up with wasn’t going to be useful.

The flight to Denver was full but on time. With his last minute booking Tom had been stuck with an aisle seat of course. However, the emergency exit row seats were occupied by an elderly couple who would not have been able to open the door if needed, so Tom was swapped with one of them and scored not only the window but two additional precious inches of legroom.

The two-hour trip to Denver was uneventful. The weather was calm enough so that the seat belt sign was off, although there was no room in the small plane to really get up and move around. As they flew over the Grand Canyon the pilot told them how spectacular it looked, but it was below them on the right and Tom was looking out at the left wing. When they came into Denver and turned north into the landing approach, Tom’s view of the Front Range was magnificent. All of the mountains were completely covered with snow with the snow line almost down to the city already.

Mindful of Jason’s worries about possible surveillance, Tom at first tried to keep an eye open for anyone who might be watching or following him. He sheepishly realized how unlikely it was that those extreme measures would be necessary at this point. If some cop bot system had tagged them, a surveillance routine would be following him from one security camera to another. Since he wasn’t going to dodge the cameras, and it would only serve to really set of some red flags if he tried, he just relaxed and acted the part of a nephew trying to track down a long lost aunt for the holidays. It wasn’t a hard role to play.

On the ground, Tom checked his phone for messages but found nothing from Jason. He hoped that was good. Tom double checked the phone to make sure that the security software was working before sending a text message to his pet sitter to let her know that he had arrived safely in Denver. His upgraded home system would see that Jason got a copy of the message on the side.

Tom picked up his rental car, set the GPS, and followed its instructions onto Route 470 around the city. It was getting near noon and breakfast had gotten skipped in his rush to the airport, so he got off the freeway to find food as soon as he got to I-25. He was impatient to get on the trail of Auntie Annie but it wouldn’t do to show that, so he took his time before setting off to the south again.

It was an enjoyable drive, the air clear and cool, the mountains towering up out of nowhere on his right, the plains stretching off as flat as a pool table for two thousand miles to his left. After an hour the Air Force Academy and its iconic chapel appeared between the freeway and the mountains. After passing through Colorado Springs a turn into the mountains for five miles brought him to Manitou Springs at the base of Pikes Peak.

Manitou Springs was obviously a tourist town on the cusp of two tourist seasons. The big summer crowds going up to the Pikes Peak summit were long gone, but the more modest crowds coming to ski and take the holiday trips up the mountain hadn’t yet started. Everywhere in town were directional signs sending drivers to parking for the historic cog railroad station, but Tom ignored them.

Getting off of the highway he followed the main road through town, taking in all of the shops and restaurants. The buildings were a mixture of old brick and timber buildings that might have been a hundred years old and little strip mall style buildings that were much more recent. The older buildings tended to be occupied by antique stores, craft stores, and restaurants that catered to tourists, while the strip malls were full of the convenience stores, fast food restaurants, and small businesses that every town needed to function. The store windows in the older buildings were full of all manner of knickknacks and bits aimed toward tourists, but at least they looked like reasonably upscale knickknacks. Christmas themes were dominating the decorations, although there weren’t yet any decorations hung on the street lights.

As he approached the turnoff to the train station Tom spotted a pair of small motels. Neither looked likely to win any awards other than those given out by the local chamber of commerce, but they both looked reasonably clean and comfortable. Both had signs advertising “Free Wi-Fi” and “Free HBO & Cable”. Both had their “Vacancy” lights lit over their almost empty parking lots. Tom picked the one on the right for no particular reason.

Tom had never considered himself to be a gregarious man or even a particularly social and outgoing one, but for this trip he was working hard on playing a different role. Trying hard to not go over the top, he made an effort to be chatty and friendly with the hotel desk clerk, letting her know the gist of why he was in town and who he was looking for. The clerk had never heard of Annie of course, but she was more than happy to give Tom directions back to the police station. It was about a quarter-mile walk, back about half way to the exit from the highway, right where Tom had seen it on his way to the hotel.

Tom checked into his room and found it to be pretty much as expected for a low-budget motel room built three blocks from a tourist trap. He checked the wi-fi connection and found it to be functional if not particularly strong, worth just what he had paid for it. After sending another text message to his pet sitter to give her his overnight location, he headed down the street toward the police station.

The Manitou Springs police station was a newer building sharing a lot with the fire department and city hall. Tom went in, expecting to find a lobby walled off from the main station by a bullet-proof partition, but this wasn’t Los Angeles, or even Denver. A uniformed officer looked up from the counter as he entered.

“Can I help you, sir?”

“I hope so. My name is Tom Tiernan and I’m trying to track down an aunt of mine. No one in the family has heard from her for several years, but I have reason to believe that she was in this area about two years ago, so I’m hoping that someone here might be able to help me find her.”

“Do you need to file a missing persons report, sir?”

“No, no. Nothing like that,” Tom said. “I don’t really know if she still lives around here or even if she’s still alive. I’m here because I found a record of her being arrested and charged with trespassing two summers ago, something about a commune that was being evicted off of someone else’s land.”

“I see. Yeah, I remember that situation, a guy up in one of the canyons wanted to subdivide and sell the lots for pricey vacation homes. Who is this you’re looking for? What’s her name?”

“She’s my aunt, her name is Anne Tiernan. She would have been about eighty-one at the time, so she would be eighty-three now. She’s sort of the ‘free spirit’ of the family, if you know what I mean, but with the holidays coming up her brothers and sister, my mother, would like to make sure that she’s all right.”

“Yeah, I know what you mean, we get more than our fair share of that kind of person around here.” He made a note, apparently writing down Annie’s name. “Do you have some ID, sir?”

“Of course.” Tom pulled out his wallet and handed over his driver’s license. The officer ran it through a scanner and handed it back to Tom. Tom  assumed that some information based on his license was showing up on a monitor, but it was set at an angle so that he couldn’t read it. The officer scanned the information, then started typing.

“Is your aunt’s last name spelled the same as yours, Mr. Tiernan?” the officer asked.

“Yes, it’s T-I-E-R-N-A-N.”

“Uh-huh. It looks like she was booked here in the summer of ’16 like you said. She spent one night with us, saw the judge, paid a fine, and left. I don’t show anything other than that. Sorry.”

“I see. You don’t happen to know her or have a picture, do you? There wasn’t a booking photo that I could find online, but that should be public. If I could get that it would at least let me know what she looked like then. It’s been over ten years since I’ve seen her, so a more current picture would help.” Tom hoped that using a selective subset of the truth wouldn’t come back to haunt him.

“No, I don’t know her, but there is a picture here. You’re supposed to fill out the forms and submit a request to get a copy mailed to you,” the officer said as he hit a couple of keys on the keyboard, causing a printer to come to life and kick out a page, “but if you do that you’ll find out that she looked a lot like this. Will that do?”

“That would be perfect, thank you. I very much appreciate your help. Do you know anyone else who’s still around who might have been associated with the commune that got evicted? Someone who might have known Auntie Annie when she was here?”

“Not directly, no. Once the commune was shut down everyone scattered and I don’t recall seeing any of them in this area. There are plenty of other small towns up in the mountains out west that get these small groups and cults setting up shop, but nothing around here.

“There is one person you might check with though. Ellen Summers runs the chocolate and candy boutique down about three blocks on the other side of the street. She wasn’t a part of the commune, at least not any time near the end when they got the boot, but her mother was there and had some sort of leadership position. Ellen had left the group years before, I guess because she preferred indoor plumbing, electricity, and Bobby Summers, but she hung around here after her and Bobby got married, in part so that she could be near her mom. She might know something, or she might not.”

“Thank you, officer, you’ve been very helpful,” said Tom, turning and walking back out to the street, making sure that he had the photo tucked away securely in his coat pocket.

Tom crossed the street, mindful to do so at the corner in a crosswalk, and casually strolled along the shops there. It was getting chilly and the wind was picking up, so he was glad to see the sign in the window for “Coffee & Hot Chocolate Available” at the Pikes Peak Fine Chocolate & Confectionery Emporium.

He was alone inside the store as the door closed behind him, ringing an old fashioned bell attached to the top of the door. He started to look around at the candies and chocolate displays. From a back room he could hear someone moving around and soon a middle-aged woman came out, followed by a large tomcat. The cat slunk along behind the counter to the window at the front of the store where it took up its sentry position on a chair cushion.

“Can I help you with something?” the woman asked. “Some candy or chocolate? Anything in particular that you’re looking for?”

“A hot chocolate would be great, thanks. Are you Ellen Summers?” Tom asked.

“I am,” she replied as she turned to fill a mug from a pot of hot cocoa that had been sitting on a hot plate. “May I ask who you are and why you need to know?”

“I’m sorry, that was rude of me. I’m Tom Tiernan. It was suggested by the police officer at the station that I talk to you. I’m trying to track down an aunt who I haven’t seen in quite a while. She apparently was here when the commune was shut down two years ago. The guy at the station said that you might still have connections to other people who had been in the commune and they might be able to help me find my aunt.”

Ellen picked up the mug of chocolate and motioned toward a table near the front of the store. She set it down in front of Tom and took the seat opposite him as he sat down.

“You mean my mother, of course. No need to beat around the bush. Tell me about your aunt.”

“Her name was Anne Tiernan and the family has pretty much lost touch with her for years. I was talking to her brothers and sisters the other day about getting together for the holidays and I decided to try to get in touch with Annie if I could to invite her to join us. The last information I could find on her led me here.” Tom took a sip of the chocolate to test the temperature, expecting it to be too hot to drink right away. He was pleasantly surprised to find that it was perfect.

“What was your aunt like?” Ellen asked.

“In a word, weird. She was always a bit off, the classic one in the crowd who was marching to a different drummer. I remember her from when I was a kid and I liked her, but she didn’t get along with my parents or her brothers, so she went her own way. She would be about 82 now and I don’t even know if she’s still alive, but if she is I would sure like to re-connect with her. This is really good chocolate, by the way.”

“Thanks. It’s my special recipe, has a lot of pot in it. That’s legal here in Colorado, you know.”

Tom stopped drinking in mid-sip and looked at Ellen over the top of the mug, keeping it at his lips. After a second he raised his eyebrows a bit in a silent inquiry. Ellen let the moment drag out, maintaining eye contact, looking nonchalant, before smiling and looking down at the table.

“Go ahead, it’s fine. A local joke, there’s not any pot in it, just chocolate and cream and lots of sugar. You really should see the look on your face though.”

Tom’s attention was no longer on Ellen and her joke however. Looking past Ellen toward the windows on the other side of the front door, he could see her tomcat. He was now sitting up at attention, tail twitching, staring up at something in midair. Tom couldn’t see anything there.

His heart starting to race, Tom asked as calmly as he could, “Is your cat all right over there? He’s acting like he’s about to attack something.”

Ellen turned and glanced back at the cat. She looked up in the air where the cat was looking before turning back to face Tom. “He does that. He’s a cat. It’s like they’re an alien species, who knows what they’re seeing or thinking. He probably got into some catnip or something.”

“Do you have any catnip here for him to get into?” Tom asked.

“Maybe. I don’t know. There used to be some in the back but I haven’t seen it in forever. He’s probably got it stashed away. Whatever. Do you want a refill on that hot chocolate?” she asked, starting to rise.

“No!” Tom said, grabbing at Ellen’s wrist and then immediately letting go. “I’m sorry, that startled me. No, I’m fine. Please, just sit for a minute. I just want to find out about my aunt if I can.”

Taken aback, Ellen sat but leaned back away from Tom and the table, now cautious.

“My mother doesn’t talk much about her work and her friends at the commune,” she said with a chill in her voice. ”I’ve never met anyone named Anne or Annie when I’ve visited, so I don’t think I can help you.”

Keeping one eye on the tom at and the location where he was still staring, Tom pulled out the picture that the policeman at the station had given to him. He unfolded it and handed it to Ellen.

“Here’s what she looked like two years ago,” Tom said. “Does she look familiar at all? You’re really my only lead right now.”

Ellen looked down at the picture. In a flash, recognition was written all over her face. She held the paper for a moment, pondering. She looked up at Tom as if some disparate puzzle pieces had fallen together.

“This is Dahlia. She was in the commune, wandered in and out, but I knew her when I lived there and I saw her every now and then after I left. You’re right, she was weird, a real whack-a-doodle. But at other times she could be…I don’t even know how to say it.” Ellen paused, as if she wasn’t sure she should say her next thought. “Your name is Tom Tiernan? You’re Tee-tee, right?”

Tom felt as if the chair had been kicked out from under him. He could not remember being called that for over fifty years, but in an instant he remembered when his Auntie Annie had given him that nickname while she was teaching him his alphabet at a very young age.

“Yes, she called me that. I’m Tee-tee. But how did you know?”

“Dahlia had told everyone that she never wanted to talk to anyone in her family again, except for you. We were always told what she wanted if you ever showed up looking for her.”

As Ellen spoke, the tomcat growled and leapt from the chair up onto the counter by the cash register. Landing smoothly, he trotted the length of the counter before hopping down and disappearing into the back room. The motion caused both Ellen and Tom to turn and watch him.

Ellen turned back to Tom and handed Annie’s picture back to him. “Stupid cat. There must be catnip involved. Anyway, I don’t know where you aunt is now, but I’m sure that we need to have you meet my mother.”

While I normally put in a lot of  internal links to previous, related posts here, I won’t be doing that for what I hope will be thirty NaNoWriMo posts. If you have jumped into or stumbled onto this story in mid-adventure, there are plenty of other ways to navigate around the site to find previous installments. Actually doing so is left as an exercise to the student.

A little bit less adrenaline and enthusiasm today, a little more reality. It’s one thing to “know” that it’s going to be a lot of hard work, it’s another thing to know it.

I wanted to move the story along and get a little bit of help and possibly useful information for Tom and Jason. I found that I kept coming up with logic issues as I wrote. (“Wait, wouldn’t this be a problem? How would they explain that?”) It also became increasingly obvious that Tom and Jason had to meet ASAP, and why. (I had originally thought that they wouldn’t meet face to face for a while.) By the time I was done with that, the destination for Chapter Three had changed. What I thought would come next here will have to wait for a chapter or two, and I now see some additional wrinkles and plot twists down the road.

Good thing I’m keeping notes!

CHAPTER THREE

By mid-morning Tom had talked to his mother, his two brothers, his sister, and his two surviving uncles. In each case the conversations were casual, pleasant, and ostensibly about the usual family gathering during the upcoming holidays. It wasn’t too terribly unusual for Tom to call any one of them from time to time. As long as his family didn’t suddenly compare notes and wonder why Tom was calling all of them at the same time and asking some of the same questions of each of them, there shouldn’t be any suspicions raised.

Tom’s younger brother and sister knew nothing of Aunty Annie, largely because she had been banished from the household before they were out of diapers. They knew who she was but couldn’t recall ever having talked to her or had any contact with her at all. When asked why he might be asking about her, Tom gave out a pre-packaged story about a new family tree making software package that he was playing with. He had even gone so far as to download and install the software, so he dutifully took their information about birth dates, birth locations, spouses, spouses’ data, kids’ data, and so on.

Tom’s older brother had a few memories of Aunty Annie but he hadn’t had any recent contact with her either. When pressed about his memories of her, all he said was, “She was a loon and she smelled funny. I was scared of her and I thought it was great when Mom and Dad told her to get lost. She was always trying to touch my head. Yours too, even when you were really little. I tried to keep you hidden from her when she came over but she would still track you down. I would find her holding your head and whispering to you. It was really, really creepy me out. And you’re welcome, by the way.”

Tom’s mother and uncles were able to give him plenty of genealogical data for the family tree. Using that pretext Tom was able to get them to talk at some length about their oldest sister. All of them described her as being “odd”, even as a child. Despite everyone’s hopes that she would grow out of it, it was a condition that got worse as time went on. Both of Tom’s uncles thought that their parents might have had Annie tested to see if she had what now would be called a “learning disability”, but they didn’t know what the tests might have shown.

As an adult, Annie had problems holding a job. She never had any boyfriends or lovers that any of them knew of. When the Sixties rolled around everyone in the family that there must be drugs involved, but there was never any evidence or proof. If nothing else, she never did anything to get herself arrested.

Her “condition” had apparently gotten worse about the time of the moon landings. Where before she had often acted as if she were listening to things that no one else could hear and seeing things that no one else could see, the fact that men were walking on the moon was a source of agitation for her. No one could figure out why and Annie wasn’t able to tell them. When pressed, she only said that they wouldn’t be able to understand it if they didn’t already know why, whatever that meant.

For thirty years, Annie had drifted, usually though the southwest and mountain states. She lived a vagabond life, moving irregularly through a series of communes in Colorado, Utah, and Arizona. One summer one of her uncles had gotten a phone call from her when she was in Alberta and needed money to get back to the United States. Tom’s other uncle had kept a handful of letters he had gotten from her during those years. From them Tom got three decades-old, probably useless, return addresses.

When Tom’s grandmother had become seriously ill, she had asked about Annie, wanting to see her one last time. Tom’s mother remembered telling Nana that Annie was lost somewhere living like a damn hippie, only to have Nana retort that hippies had sex, drugs, and rock and roll, while Annie had nothing to do with any of those things. Near the end, when she was heavily sedated, Nana had also repeatedly said that Annie was only partially of this world, but there hadn’t been any further explanation.

The introduction of the internet and email had brought Annie back into the fold in a small way. For some reason Annie had taken to the idea of living a virtual, online life. As others in the family gradually got online accounts they would receive long, ranting tomes from Annie once or twice a year. No one had kept any of those files, of course, with most of them disappearing with the death of AOL, Hotmail, and other email services now long defunct.

The last that anyone had heard from Auntie Annie was about 2012 or 2013. She had sent a few cryptic e-mails to everyone about how “it was getting worse” and she was going to have to go underground for her own safety. Following her previous communications these messages were notable in their brevity. Annie was sounding distinctly paranoid with talk of being followed and under constant surveillance. She was going offline permanently and they shouldn’t look for her.

In the five years since, no one had heard a word. No one knew if she was alive or dead and no one seemed particularly interested in finding out. Tom thanked each of his relatives for their personnel data, anecdotal comments, and family recollections. He promised to send around copies of the family tree data once he got it all pulled together.

Once all of the familial phone calls had been made, Tom set to work trying to see what digital clues might be out there which could possibly lead to Auntie Annie. For more than an hour he played with different search engines and key words, looking for any record of her existence. The skills he had learned as a science and tech reporter came back easily and soon he had several additional nuggets of information.

There was no sign that Annie had ever had a driver’s license or owned a car. Ever. Tom couldn’t even conceive of that in this day and age, but a thorough search of vehicle registrations and DMV records drew a complete blank.

Annie must have had a social security number issued, since her younger siblings all had them. In fact, her two brothers had numbers that were only one digit off from each other, indicating that they had been issued at the same time, probably when they were kids in the mid-Sixties. Tom tried to see if the previous or following SSN’s might get a hit with her name, but he didn’t get far. He wanted to avoid pushing too hard on the government site’s security right now, so that search got tabled for the moment.

There were no signs of Annie on any of the social media sites, but that wasn’t unusual given her age group and her determination to “go underground” a few years ago. There were no signs of her on any state or county welfare rolls in the western states – they could search the other states later if they needed to.

There were no obituaries, news stories, or death certificates reported for Annie.

One thing that the family didn’t quite have correct was Annie’s record with the law. A search of the public arrest record databases for the United States and Canada showed that she had been cited at least a half-dozen times, mostly for minor infractions such as vagrancy or hitchhiking. All of the citations were either settled with a small fine or dismissed outright.

It didn’t look like she had ever actually spent any time in jail except for one night, but that night was less than two years ago. It was by far the most recent kernel of information Tom had found so far. The details were sketchy, but it involved a commune which was being evicted after squatting on someone else’s land for years. The property owner now wanted to do something else with it. A group of a dozen commune residents had resisted and gotten arrested for trespassing. After one night in jail in Manitou Springs, Colorado, they had been fined, released, and told to never set foot on the property again.

Just before noon, Tom called Jason to share what he had found out and to see what he might have discovered about the video they had. After three rings, just before Tom expected the call to go to voice mail, Jason answered.

“Jason, this is Tom.”

“Tom?” Jason asked, sounding confused.

“Yes, Tom,” he said, wondering what was going on now. “Tom Tiernan? I was supposed to call you at noon today?”

“Oh, right, you’re Betty’s friend, calling about the motorcycle I’ve got for sale, right?”

Tom had been a research scientist and a reporter, not a spy, but he knew when he was having a hint forced down his throat. He didn’t know why Jason was carrying on like this, but now was not the time to question it. He was just going to have to trust Jason for the moment and assume that this call was not secure and something bad was happening.

“Yeah, your bike,” Tom stalled. “I’m glad that Betty told you that I would be calling. What can you tell me about it? Is it safe to ride?”

“I wouldn’t say that a bike is ever completely safe, but I’ve never had any problems with it. I think you’ll be okay as long as you’re really careful and don’t take any unnecessary risks.”

“I’ll keep that in mind. This motorcycle of yours, is it real? I’m a real stickler about having only factory installed and original gear. I would hate to be wasting time if there have been a lot of modifications done.”

“I guarantee that it’s 100% original, with no modifications. If you’ve got time, I would like to show it to you as soon as I can. Are you free to meet me someplace this afternoon?”

“Sure, where would you suggest?”

“I think it would be best to get together someplace where we’ll have some open space for you to ride around. Do you know where the LA Zoo is in Griffith Park, and the Autrey Museum there?”

“Sure, I haven’t been there in years since the kids are all grown, but I know where it’s at. Any particular time and spot in the parking lot you want to meet?”

“How about at 1:30 sort of out in front of the Autrey? I’ll be the guy with the green Kawasaki motorcycle.”

“Okay, I’ll see you there, 1:30 by the Autrey. I’ll be the old guy in the blue BMW convertible.”

“Great. And again, your name was Tom?”

“Yeah, it’s Tom. I’m really looking forward to hearing what you might have to tell me about this bike of yours.”

==========================================

Tom had picked up a chicken wrap and a drink on the way over. He was still eating his lunch when a tall, stocky man rode up on a green Kawasaki Ninja 650. His face and head were concealed under his helmet. He was wearing a heavy leather motorcycle jacket, jeans, along with heavy boots and gloves.

As he parked next to Tom’s car, Tom got out. Jason left the engine idling but pulled off his helmet and gloves. Putting the gloves into the helmet and tucking it under his left arm, he held out his hand. Tom shook it and found something being pressed into his palm.

“Tom, I’m glad that you could meet me, I’m Jason. Thanks for coming out here. Let me show you the engine on this baby.” Still straddling the bike, he leaned down next to the frame and started revving the engine. Tom ignored the noise and leaned down with his head near Jason’s.

“I’m pretty sure the noise of the engine will keep anyone from snooping,” Jason said, just barely audible above the engine noise, “but we need to be quick. What you said about paranoia was correct. Something we said or did yesterday triggered an alert and we are probably both being watched and monitored, at least remotely. We need to let the cop bots see us being normal and boring and then they’ll downgrade and file it, but in the meantime, be very cautious.”

“What did you give me when we shook hands?” Tom asked.

“It’s a tiny memory stick with some goodies. Install it on your home system and follow all of the instructions. Your home system is good, but this one’s a lot better. Once you get it installed, then we can talk safely. And before you ask – don’t ask.”

“Jason, you’re asking a lot given that we’re total strangers.”

“I know, and so are you. I’m sure you understood that the video is real, not something that was tampered with or created. I’ll fill you in later on how I know what I know, but right now we’ve got to ratchet up the security level. Install that software as soon as you get home. Did you find anything?”

“Will do, I’ll install it. I think I’ve got at least a halfway decent clue, but it’s going to take me to Colorado. I can tell you about it later when we’re secure.”

“Right. Now for the big question, especially if we are being watched. Can you ride a motorcycle? You need to take a test drive on this thing.”

“It’s been a while,” Tom answered, “but I used to ride so I can probably get around the parking lot without killing myself.”

“Okay, it’s show time. Assume someone or something is listening unless we’re on a connection that I tell you is secure.”

With that, Jason let the engine go back to idle and put down the kickstand. He stepped off of the bike and Tom stepped on, accepting the offer of the helmet even though it was just for a quick spin around the parking lot. Jason walked him through the gearing, instruments, and controls. Finally it was time to put up or shut up.

Tom was very pleased to see that he was able to make it around the parking lot twice without killing himself or hitting anything.

Tom and Jason went through the show of discussing the sale price, after which Tom expressed some doubts about whether or not the bike was right for him. Tom made sure that he gave Jason the contact information that Jason shouldn’t know about yet, and they agreed to talk later in the day.

Jason roared off onto the freeway on his motorcycle, while Tom tried to keep his attention focused on driving and his thoughts from showing up on his face. The last thing he wanted to do was to get into an accident or run a red light now because of the distraction caused by Jason’s news.

Once he got home, Tom followed Jason’s instructions and inserted the memory stick into his residential system. He followed the onscreen instructions and attached his phone, laptop, pad, and all other mobile devices as requested. The system even told him that the connection to his car and the software onboard the BMW had been updated, all without even bothering to ask for his password or permission.

As the system announced that it was finished, Tom’s phone automatically dialed Jason. Jason answered on the first ring.

“Thanks, Tom,” Jason said. “This is a secure connection. Just make sure that when we talk you don’t have any doors or windows open so that you can’t be heard from outside.”

“What’s this software, Jason?”

“It’s some top of the line military security stuff. I can’t tell you anything more than that or where it comes from, but it will make anyone listening in on the line hear something completely boring and blasé. Anyone tapping into your home video will see you doing boring, routine shit.”

“I hope that you’ll tell me more someday when you think I’m worthy. Why do you think that we need it?”

“After I talked to you last night, as I was leaving to go home, I got called in by a supervisor to go over my incident logs for the day. He asked about a number of them, including yours. That’s a random security procedure here and it has happened to me before, but I don’t believe in coincidences. When I got home I checked my system and found that there had been repeated attempts to hack into the system, starting soon after I first called you and then called the paramedics. My system had allowed the cop bot system to believe that it had successfully hacked in. It’s feeding the cop bot regular doses of bullshit. So that’s why I think we need that level of security right now.”

“I understand,” Tom said. “Thank you for taking the steps you did, I appreciate it.”

“No worries. For the moment we have to assume that you were monitored when you were calling and searching for information this morning. Did you do or say anything there that might raise any red flags?”

Tom quickly thought back through his conversations with his family and the questions he had asked. He was suddenly very happy that he had actually bought that family tree software and put data into it as he had talked to his family.

“I didn’t mention anything about yesterday’s events,” Tom said, explaining what he had done with the software and what he had found out about Aunt Annie. “If anyone had tapped into here earlier, they wouldn’t see anything other than someone setting up plans to meet for the holiday. I think we’re good.”

“Fine, so we’re safe enough for now. I’ll monitor systems from here. What do you think your next step is?”

“I need to try to track down Annie. I won’t be able to do much more from here or online, so I need to get to Colorado to follow up in person. I’ll make reservations tonight and try to fly out first thing tomorrow.”

“Good. We’ll need to stay in touch at least once a day. Is it safe to assume that you figured out what I was telling you about my preliminary analysis of the video?”

“I got that, the video is real, or at least it isn’t a fake down to the level of detection we’ve got. Since you seem to have some really excellent security toys, is it safe to assume that you’ve got access to equally excellent video toys?”

“Yes, Tom, it would be safe to assume that. Don’t ask, don’t tell. When we talk while you’re on the road we should be secure if you’re using your phone to call me on my phone, but for anything else make sure that we’re talking about the motorcycle. Got it?”

“I’ve got it, Jason. You’re security and video analysis; I’m off to do some snooping in the field. We’ll keep in touch. And you’ve got a nice bike, congratulations.”

“Thanks. You do know that I’m not really going to sell it to you. Right?”

You mean I have to bleed onto the page every freakin’ day? Every day? Damn! Still lots of adrenaline and enthusiasm, but the tiniest little bit of reality is starting to creep in.

Lots of dialogue and exposition to set the stage in this chapter. I suspect that it will be something to be played with, rearranged, or completely re-done in a later draft, but for now it starts lining up the challenges for our protagonists and establishing the setting. This is not necessarily a bad second step after pulling a bizarre and highly improbable scenario out of my ass in the first chapter.

CHAPTER TWO

The paramedics were thorough as they made sure that Tom was not in need of immediate hospitalization. He patiently lied to them about what had happened, explaining it away as a dizzy spell brought on by low blood sugar combined with the adrenaline from getting scratched by the cat. He sipped some orange juice as they checked him out. He graciously allowed them to again clean and wash his arm and hand where the cat scratches were, followed by the application of some fancier, paramedic approved ointment. Once his temperature, heartbeat, blood pressure, blood sugar, balance, and mental functions were all determined to be within norms for a man of his age, they left him alone again.

In the course of the exam Tom had been moved back onto the couch in the living room to rest and more easily be examined. Now he lay there with the cat curled up asleep on his chest and wondered what his next move should be.

While he didn’t know exactly what had happened in this room earlier, it seemed obvious that talking about it to the paramedics or just about anyone else would be ill advised. Whether he actually had mental problems or Alzheimer’s disease or not, if he started mouthing off and asking about floating black holes that only the cat could see, he would be prejudged and assumed to be missing a few marbles. That wouldn’t solve anything.

He could go looking on the internet for information, but given the bizarre nature of the afternoon’s events, he had serious doubts about the validity of anything he might find there. No doubt he could call into the Art Bell Show and get a sympathetic audience, but he needed actual data and help, not a warm welcome into a community of conspiracy obsessed wackos. Still, it might be worth a quick, quiet search online. You never could tell what might turn up.

As he thought about it, Tom realized that the appearance of the bizarre phenomenon had triggered a collection of long buried memories from his very early childhood. It was probably nothing, but it was more than he had now.

The second problem was Jason. Tom had no information regarding who he was, if he could be counted on, or if he could be trusted. If secrecy was necessary, Jason was definitely the biggest security risk right now. Was secrecy necessary? That was another huge question, but it seemed prudent to act as if it was. To paraphrase the saying about guns, it would be better to be paranoid when it wasn’t necessary than to not be paranoid when it was.

That brought an even bigger set of questions. With so many unknowns and only a small set of truly bizarre data, how safe was he right now? How would he know if he was in danger? What exactly was the danger if it existed? Those multiple layers of teeth on the edge of that hole would have made a great white shark turn tail and run. But were they even teeth? More important was the thing that contained them. The thing. The object. The hole in space. Make that the invisible hole in space.

Tom had way too many questions with way too little data.

After carefully shifting the sleeping cat off of his chest and onto her pillow on the couch, Tom retrieved his cell phone from the kitchen table. Giving instructions to have a text message sent back to the IP address from which the video had been downloaded, he typed, “Jason, call me please.”

In a few seconds, a return message popped up. “In a little bit, on another call now.”

Tom settled back to wait. He transferred the video file to the home server and brought it up on the big screen. He slowly flipped through the images which showed the floating hole. A few of the frames he ran through some software to clean up and enhance. Knowing it would be there made the video less shocking, but seeing it blown up and enlarged made it even more bewildering and bizarre.

Looked at in detail, there didn’t seem to be any fuzziness or unevenness to the edge of the whole. It was tilted in the view of the camera so it appeared as an ellipse, but every indication was that it was perfectly round. The edge didn’t seem to pulse, waver, or wiggle. It just existed, a clean hole punched in the air.

Tom noticed that in some frames when he was moving behind the hole as seen from the security camera, the hole was completely opaque. The interior of the hole appeared at first to be jet black, but some of the later frames showed shadowy, grey, indistinct forms. The grey blobs were faint and with the slow frame rate they seemed randomized from one frame to another, like snapshots of static on an old television.

In the last three frames, just as his arms rose up, the “teeth” appeared from around the edge of the hole. They were small at first, then bigger with a second and third row, then huge with several overlapping circles and arcs. It was like looking into a tunnel-shaped, circular buzz saw.

Tom cropped an image that showed just the hole with the teeth. Like that it looked almost abstract, like something that might be found in a tattoo on a gang member. Tom asked for an internet search for the cropped image. A number of pictures of wheels and clip art dingbats came up, as well as some images from an assortment of science fiction films.

Eliminating all of those results, there were a handful of images which looked similar. One image was centered in a pentagram. Another appeared to be an ancient cave drawing. The final match was from a wood cut dating back to eastern Europe in the Middle Ages. Tom filed the images for future reference.

The phone rang. Tom saw that it was the security company and put the call on speaker. He also started his own recording of the call, without benefit of the mandatory warning beeps.

“This is Tom Tiernan. Who’s this?”

“Mr. Tiernan, this is Jason again. You asked me to call you back.”

“Thank you for calling back, Jason. And please call me ‘Tom’. I don’t think we need to stand on formalities at this point.”

“Okay, Tom, no worries. How are you feeling now? Did the paramedics give you a clean bill of health?”

“Yes, they’re gone now. Thank you for calling them earlier. Jason, it sounds like this call is being recorded. I’m assuming that our previous call was recorded as well. Is that correct?”

“Yes, sir, that is correct. All of our calls are recorded, there’s no way to shut that off.”

“That’s fine. I’m wondering who has access to those recordings, since I’m very concerned about my private security. I’m sure you know what I mean.”

“Yes, sir, I understand completely. Absolute customer privacy is a cornerstone of our company’s services, so we have extensive safeguards to make sure that all records are kept private. As I’m sure you’re aware, we’re required by law to keep all recordings, video, audio, and data, but unless there’s a court order, no one outside of the company except you can access them. Inside the company, only the agent handling an incident and their direct supervisors are allowed access, and that access occurs only in certain very restrictive circumstances. Per your instructions, I’ve marked this incident as ‘closed’ and set the security levels on all of the related data so that even a supervisor shouldn’t be able to access it without getting written permission from you in advance.”

“Thank you, Jason. And this is a secure line?”

“Yes, sir, as secure as they can be given the track record of the NSA and associated governmental agencies. If anyone is listening in, it would be them, but I’m not aware of anything that’s happened that might trigger any of their systems.”

“Well, there were certain things in that video that they might be interested in, but we’ll just have to hope that it’s too far out into the Twilight Zone to be something that they would be setting triggers for.”

“That would be my assessment as well. Um, Tom? Can I speak freely?”

“Jason, I insist that you do. I don’t know what’s going on and we don’t know each other, but we’re in this together and we’ll need to trust each other. A huge part of that is communication, so it’s critical that we not hold anything back from each other. What is it?”

“Tom, pardon the figure of speech here, but… what the fuck is going on? Unless you’re pulling the greatest practical joke in the world on me, something happened two hours ago that is way, way off the scale for bizarre. I’m really hoping that you’re going to tell me that I’m being punked and there are cameras hidden here someplace. Ha, ha! Right? Ollie ollie oxen free, the jokes over, right?

“Tom? I’m doing my best not to lose it here. I’ve been trying to carry on as best I could for the last two hours, but if that video wasn’t doctored or some kind of special effects clip, something seriously fucking wrong is going on here!”

“Jason, just take a breath or two,” Tom said, trying to make sure the situation didn’t spin out of control. “Calm down. It won’t help either of us to panic. Besides, if there’s an evil, ravenous, interdimensional, piranha black hole lurking about, it’s in my house, not yours. Right?”

Jason took a minute to avoid hyperventilation. Tom could hear a couple of choking sounds, but then it sounded like Jason was pulling it together again. Slowly the heavy panting that Tom could hear got quieter.

“Okay, sorry about that, Tom. I think I’m better. I just had to get that out, it’s been tough holding it in with no idea what’s happening.”

“I understand. I don’t know if it makes it any better or not, but I can assure you that I’m just as freaked out as you are with that video. If it’s fake, and I’m not saying it might not be, I didn’t have anything to do with making it. If any reality TV hosts with hidden cameras pop up there, tell them to let me off the hook also. In the meantime, let’s assume that the video is real and we’ve got to deal with it.”

“Right. Deal with it. Any ideas how we do that?”

“Not yet, but I’m working on it. My first concern is keeping an extremely low profile and staying off of everyone’s radar. I think that it’s absolutely critical that this doesn’t go any further than you and I for right now. I do not want to get locked up in a loony bin or on some unmarked Navy ship because Homeland Security hears about it and freaks out. Agreed?”

“Yeah, that seems reasonable. I can get onboard with that plan.”

“Good. I’ve got everything here locked down as tightly as I can for a high-end private residence and home business IT setup. Security at your end is better, but you’ve also got more people with potential access. I’m leaving it up to you to make sure that things stay secure there. Can you handle that?”

“Yes, I’ll keep it locked down and I won’t raise any flags while doing it. Good plan, I’m on it.”

“Okay, Jason, the next thing I need you to do is to go over that video pixel by pixel to see what’s there and if there’s anything that we’re missing. First of all, check to see if you can tell if it’s faked. If it is, I think we have a much less dangerous situation to deal with and a whole different set of questions to ask. I’m sure that you have access to much better software toys than I do for that sort of thing. Just don’t do it at work and keep it quiet.”

“I can do that as well. I’m off for the next two days so I’ll start that. What are you going to do?”

“I did some fast and dirty analysis on the images in the video and that gave me a couple of long shot things to track down. For one of them I’m going to need to talk to someone, a distant relative. She’s way off the net, so I’ll have to see her in person. I’ll let you know when that happens, since I think the two of us need to stay in close contact on this thing.”

“Tom, I thought you said we had to keep this between just the two of us for now. Who is this you’re going to tell about it, and why?”

“She’s a crazy, old great aunt who lives off in the boonies in Colorado. I won’t tell her any details, but I remember her telling all sorts of weird stories when I was a kid. My parents and the rest of the family finally told her to stay away from all of us. I haven’t seen her in twenty years and I don’t even know if she’s still alive. But I haven’t heard that she’s dead, so I’ll try to track her down.”

“It’s something I guess. Let me give you my phone number so that you can reach me outside of work.”

“Sure.” Tom wrote entered the number he was given into his phone. “And Jason… You’ve got all of my personal data from my account there. I’m sure that you’ve made a copy of it for yourself by now, whether the rules allow it or not, and that’s fine. It’s what I would do in your position. On the other hand, I don’t know anything about you other than your first name. Can you fill me in?”

“Oh, right. I’m Jason Kosta, from Glendale.”

“How old are you, Jason?”

“Twenty-nine, I’ll be thirty on December ninth.”

“My son is about your age. Do you have a family, Jason?”

“My parents and two older brothers are all back east, around the D.C. area. I don’t have anyone out here with me. I just got the job here when I got out of the service and stuck around because the weather’s nice. And I like to surf. Not much of that in Maryland.”

“Okay, good enough for now. Let’s check in with each other tomorrow. I’ll call you before noon, unless I have to head out of town, in which case I’ll call you as soon as I know where I’m going. You call me if you get any information or if you don’t hear from my by noon. Have you got that?”

“Got it, Tom. Two last questions though. Do you think that the video is real? And if it is, is that thing dangerous?”

“If I were a betting man I wouldn’t give it more than a one in ten chance of being real. But you don’t bet with your brains, you bet with your gut. That’s why they sell so many lottery tickets with really lousy odds. My gut has the odds closer to fifty-fifty.

“If it’s real, I want to be really cautious because I don’t know if it’s dangerous or not. I’ve been working in the hard sciences for a long, long time and I’ve never heard of anything like that. If we didn’t have the video as evidence I would just assume that what happened was some kind of hallucination or optical illusion. Even with the video it might turn out to be that.

“I don’t want to get ahead of ourselves and jump to any conclusions. As Carl Sagan said, ‘Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.’ We could make ourselves look very stupid very fast with this. I would like to avoid that.”

“Who’s Carl Sagan?” Jason asked.

“Really, Jason? Do me a favor. Before you work on analyzing the video, google him. Anything else that you can think of?”

“No, sir. My brain is fried and I’m off in ten minutes. I may go home and have a drink and avoid thinking for the rest of the night.”

“Good plan. I’ll talk to you tomorrow, Jason.”

Tom got up and cooked a simple dinner in the microwave. As he settled down to try to track down any information on his ancient, crazed aunt, he found himself involuntarily glancing up at the ceiling periodically. He wondered if he would be able to see another invisible disk if it appeared, now that he thought that he knew that they existed. Of course, he never saw anything.

It finally occurred to Tom that instead of watching the room, he should watch the cat, since the cat had apparently seen the thing, whatever it was. She was the equivalent of the old canary in a coal mine. But she slept calmly all evening, oblivious to any interdimensional portal invasions.

And we’re off! Given the nature of NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) there will be typos and errors galore in these posts. That’s the nature of the beast. They’re “zeroth” drafts, not ever first drafts. They’re hemorrhaging words onto the blank screen. If we’re lucky there will be some sort of resemblance to proper grammar and story structure, or at least enough so that the reader can follow along.

To use a baseball analogy, it’s not like I’m trying to pitch a no hitter and strike out twenty-seven batters on eighty-one pitches. It’s much more like I’m trying to survive slogging through a long, long season in the low minors, playing in every game and making it to the end alive. Surviving, and learning from the experience. If I happen to have an occasional hitting streak or good game along the way, so much the better.

And there really is a destination to this story. That was my great insight over the last week. You may see it coming in advance, or not. And I may or may not hit it. But there is a target.

Today was a good day to start writing this story.

CHAPTER ONE

The cat’s claws dug into his leg as he sat trying to read. As always, she seemed to be upset that the dog had gotten fed before her, despite the fact that the routine had been established that way for years. It was still an hour before her feeding time and he had given her a nibble of his chicken sandwich during his lunch, but that meant nothing. As with all cats, she seemed to live only in the moment. At the moment, she was hungry.

Tom gently dislodged her claws from his leg, idly scratching behind her ears. He stroked her back and made soothing sounds to her until she relaxed and shifted her weight, curling up into a ball. Soon she was starting to purr loudly as only a cat her size could, her eyes closing to slits.

The purring abruptly stopped as her head snapped up from a snoozing position. She was new fully alert, her eyes and ears tracking something that apparently hovered somewhere a few feet in back of Tom’s head. He craned his neck around to try to see what was there, assuming it was some sort of fly or insect. He couldn’t see a thing no matter how he squinted.

The cat again dug her claws into his leg and then jumped the yard or so off of his lap and into the bay window. As soon as she landed safely, her eyes locked again on the mysterious target. Keeping her head still and focused, she slowly lowered her butt to the ground and wrapped her tail around her. She settled, but did not relax, staying ready to spring.

While the cat often acted odd (as all cats do) this was beyond the norm, even by her bizarre standards. Getting more curious by the moment, Tom slowly stood and moved away from the chair to get a different line of sight on the catnip induced event that was apparently taking place right before him. Carefully walking around the room, he squatted down at different points to see the room from different angles and against different backgrounds. Nothing magical, fascinating, or threatening appeared. With the winter sun low in the south there was a beam of sunlight dodging through the trees outside and finding its way through the window, but it illuminated only some random dust, floating aimlessly.

As he completed his circuit of the room with nothing visible, he heard the cat make a series of guttural chirping noises and then a long, low, warning growl. When he looked at her he saw that she was now in a crouch, her butt wiggling and vibrating, ready to pounce. Her eyes continued to flick back and forth across a small volume of space a few feet out in the room and a bit above head height.

Tom started to step toward the spot, closing his eyes while raising his hands to see if there might be something there that he could feel or touch even if he couldn’t see it. Was there a cobweb or something there? Was it possible that an air current eddy of some sort was doing something that was lost to his vision? Could it be that another of his senses could succeed where his vision was failing?

It was just as he closed his eyes and stepped forward in front of the cat that she screamed and leapt. Her extended claws slashed at the throat of the unseen enemy just as Tom’s bare arms blindly occupied that point in space.

The cat’s formerly graceful leap turned into a wild tumble after her claws raked across Tom’s hands and arms. She managed to twist around and land with some dignity before scooting off into the laundry room.

Tom’s eyes flew open wide as he felt the pain from a dozen long scratches. Letting out an involuntary yelp, a tension relieving roar, and a few choice curses, he hurried into the kitchen. Trying not to drip blood on anything, he stuck his arms under a running stream of cold water in the sink. Muttering threats which sometimes changed to short, shouted warnings in the general direction of the cat, he kept rinsing the scratches until the bleeding stopped. It took a few moments for him to gingerly pat his arms dry and put some antiseptic on the cuts. Then he went looking for the beast that had maimed him.

He found her next to her empty food bowl in the laundry room, calmly grooming herself as if nothing had happened. The temptation for revenge or punishment was strong, but he slowly calmed himself as he realized that in her mind she had done nothing wrong. In addition, by this time, she probably had no memory of even scratching him, so any punishment would seem to her to be totally random, unconnected to the act he wished her to learn from. He took a few deep breaths, reached onto the shelf above the dryer for a can of cat food, and picked up her bowl from the floor.

As he went into the kitchen to feed her, his cell phone started to ring and vibrate in his pocket. Setting the cat food and dish down on the table, he fished the phone out and checked the caller ID. Why would his home security company be calling him?

“Hello?” Tom asked as he answered the call.

“Mr. Tiernan? Sir, this is Jason from Home Protection Monitoring. Our system has detected a disturbance at your residence. Are you alright?”

“What? Yes. I’m fine, nothing wrong at all. What’s going on?”

“Sir, the system detected a situation a few minutes ago that potentially indicated that you might be in injured or in danger. When you didn’t respond to the text messages that we sent, we’re required to try to contact you by phone. That’s the purpose behind this call.” As Jason spoke, there was a faint but regular beeping sound in the background every few seconds, indicating that the call was being recorded.

“Text messages? Alarm? I don’t understand. Hold on.”

Pulling the phone away from his ear, Tom looked at the screen and saw that there were indeed unread text messages waiting. He tapped the icon and saw three requests from the security company in the last ten minutes, all asking him to contact them immediately. In the hubbub over the cat’s insanity he had completely missed them.

“Hello? Are you still there?” Tom asked, resuming the call. “I see your messages now. I’m sorry I didn’t call, I was just having a disagreement with my idiot cat. Is that what this is all about?”

“Mr. Tiernan, our system was initially triggered by some shouting and noise at your location. Once the alarm threshold was triggered, the system took a look at the video, an alarm was triggered, and we began trying to contact you.”

Tom paused, weighing his response carefully. On the one hand, he knew that his children had enrolled him in this home security program after his wife had died. He didn’t want to appear any more ignorant than necessary about how it worked and what he had agreed to. On the other hand, now that the system had been triggered, he found it disturbing to realize how much of his privacy he had given up in the bargain.

“Justin? Julian? Sorry, in all the confusion I missed your name the first time around.”

“It’s Jason, sir.”

“Okay, Jason. I appreciate the call and I don’t want to sound petulant, but isn’t it just a bit extreme to be going on high alert like this just because the cat scratched me? When I got signed up for your system I understood that it would be there if there was a fire, a burglary, or if I were having a heart attack and hollering for help. It seems that triggering on a cat scratch indicates that an adjustment needs to be made on the system’s triggering sensitivity.”

“Sir, you are absolutely correct, but we didn’t have an alarm triggered by a simple cat scratching. The initial triggering event was a series of loud, sudden shouts by you.”

“Right, the cat scratched me and I yelled at her. I got that part, but still, that shouldn’t trigger an alert, should it? Doesn’t your system have ways of double checking what’s really going on before it goes ballistic over a false alarm?”

“Yes, sir, again you are correct. First, the shouting tripped the autonomous audio monitoring alarm at your home. That in turn released limited access to your cached video files from the security cameras in your home. When the system reviewed that video, that’s when the alarm was issued and the text messages began. When those text messages were not acknowledged, the alert was escalated and passed on to my department for follow-up. Because of all of that, I’m talking to you now. As long as you’re alright, I can go ahead and delete your surveillance data at this end and re-set the privacy protocols on your system.”

“Fine – but I’m still unclear about something. What was it in the security video that triggered your system to treat this as a threat or a problem? Shouldn’t the video records have had the opposite effect? All they show is me being scratched by the cat, yelling at her, and dealing with some scratches.”

“Sir, that is correct. If that’s all that it was, the system should have downgraded the problem and cancelled the alert. I currently do not have any details on why the system reacted as it did. If you wish to know what the triggering event was, with your permission, I can personally look at the security images and ask the system for a log of the threat calculations.”

“I would appreciate that, Jason. Please go ahead, I want to make sure that the system is working correctly, and right now it seems to me to be out of balance.”

“Yes, sir. Please stand by while I get the data from your home system.”

For a minute Tom could hear only the faint sound of Jason’s breath, some clicking from the remote keyboard, and the steady, slow beeping of the required call recording notification tones.

“Mr. Tiernan, um… Is anyone else there with you? Or have they been?”

“No, just me and the cat. Why?”

“And there hasn’t been anything strange or odd going on aside from the cat scratching you?”

“No, not at all,” Tom said, starting at last to grow impatient. “Can you please tell me what’s going on?”

Now it was Jason’s turn to pause for several seconds, long enough for Tom to wonder if they had gotten cut off.

“Hello? Are you still there?”

“Yes, sir, Mr. Tiernan, I’m here. It’s just that there’s something very, very strange showing up in the video data from your home. That’s clearly what triggered the software to issue the alert for your residence. I just don’t understand how you don’t know about it.”

“Can you give me some details, Jason? I have no idea what you’re talking about. Is there something going on outside that I need to know about?”

“No, sir, it’s inside. And it appears that you were looking right at it. Let me send you the video file and you can see what I mean. It should be on your phone in just a second.”

Tom lowered the phone and tapped the icon to put Jason on speaker. An icon appeared and started blinking, indicating that the video file had been received. Tom tapped the icon and the video began to play.

“This starts about ten minutes before you yelled,” Jason said, “but as you can see it’s a time lapse with only a frame a second. It will slow down as we get to the triggering events.”

Tom watched the panoramic view from the corner of the vaulted ceiling as he sat reading. Suddenly, a black spot appeared, hovering in the air in the middle of the room. Tom could see the cat jumping up onto the window sill and staring intently at it.

The spot grew until it appeared to be a yard or so across. It reminded Tom of the holes that Wile E. Coyote tried to use to get the Road Runner. At first it appeared to be solid black but as the video frame rate slowed to a crawl and he looked closer, Tom could see vague forms and shapes on or within it, like an oil sheen on a puddle of water.

“What in hell is that?” Tom asked.

“I don’t know, Mr. Tiernan. If you didn’t see it, I don’t know what to tell you. It was right there in front of you.”

As the video frames clicked by, Tom saw himself walking around the room, bobbing and weaving, looking up toward where the hole was hovering. He could see the cat staring straight at it, ready to pounce. Then, as Tom raised his arms and moved toward it, the cat leaped against him, scratching him and knocking his arms away from the object.

As he was scratched and pulled his arms down, the object vanished.

Tom was stunned. He felt the world spinning. He grabbed for the table for support. His knees buckling, he managed to pull a chair out before collapsing onto it. As he set the phone down on the table he could see that the video display had been frozen on a frame showing the instant that the cat struck his arm.

“Mr. Tiernan, are you still okay? Are you seeing this also?”

Tom gasped for breath once or twice and caught himself as the world whirled around him. Long forgotten emergency training kicked in from nowhere, forcing him to focus on his breathing until his head cleared. His stomach was turning and he was sure that the amount of adrenaline being pumped into his system would make him explode.

Finally he became aware that someone was calling him. He distantly remembered that he had been talking to someone. Forcing his eyes to focus again, he realized that the voice was coming from his phone.

“Mr. Tiernan, please respond if you can hear me. I’ve called the paramedics and they should be there in a few minutes. Please let me know if you can hear me. Mr. Tiernan, are you there? Can you hear me? Mr. Tiernan?”

“I’m here, Jason. I’m still here. I just had a moment there, but I think I’m better now. I’m breathing.”

“Mr. Tiernan, I’m glad to hear you. I haven’t ever lost anyone before on this job and I don’t want you to be the first. I want you to stay relaxed and just sit there until the paramedics get there. Your vitals spiked off the chart there for a few minutes and you really had me worried.”

“Okay, Jason. I’ll just sit here and wait. But first, while we’re waiting, can you still see the last image that was showing from that video?”

“Yes, sir. I can.”

“Jason, I need you to immediately seal all access to that file and all of the records relating to this incident. I’m sorry that you’ve seen it, but you must trust me when I say that it’s absolutely critical that you not allow anyone else to see it for right now. Can you do that?”

“I can do that, but can you tell me what’s going on? What in hell is that thing? And what is that other thing inside of it?”

Tom looked at the image and then looked down at the cat who was now rubbing against his legs, still anxious for dinner. Tom reached for the cat bowl and cat food, opening the can and dumping the contents into the bowl. He leaned over and set the food down as the cat pounced on it.

“Mr. Tiernan, are you still there? Are you still OK? What’s going on? For God’s sake, what is that thing, and what’s it doing in your house? Hello?”

“I’m still here, Jason, I just had to feed the cat before things get even crazier around here. I can hear the paramedics’ siren, they’re almost here. We’ll all be fine, just make sure that you lock down that data and don’t talk to anyone other than me. Can you do that?”

“It’s done, Mr. Tiernan. Nobody but you and I have access to that data right now.”

“Thank you, Jason. The paramedics are here, so I’ll be hanging up for now. As for what that thing is? I don’t know how to give it a name or describe it.”

Tom broke the connection as he took a deep breath to steady himself. He could see the paramedics coming up the walkway. He hit the icon on his phone giving the command to unlock the door. One more time he looked at the image on the screen and the hundreds of razor sharp teeth in view around the edge of the hole. He blanked the screen and locked the phone.

“But it’s back.”