Early That Year

In the Woodlands

East of Golding, California

Harvey was a paranoid man. Didn’t have much trust for the government and didn’t have much trust for his fellow men. What he did trust about his fellow men was their willingness to be brainwashed sheep.

Well, Harvey didn’t want any part in that flock. He just wanted to be left alone.

With the intention of fulfilling that desire, he moved out to the woodlands east of Golding.

He was still human, of course. He knew he still had to talk to someone from time to time to keep his sanity. That’s why he made it a point to be at least a little bit social whenever he occasionally drove back into Golding to pick up resources.

He also made friends with the local forest rangers who’d come by to check up on him sometimes. This wasn’t exactly a hidden cabin in the woods, after all, just one that was out of the way.

His occupation of the location was also very much a legal activity. If the government secretly wanted to hunt him down in the woods, he didn’t want to give them more excuses to do so by illegally squatting.

Harvey knew he wasn’t escaping if the government really wanted him. That’s why, he was content to stay out here in the woods with them knowing exactly where he was. It was much better than living in an unmarked ditch that the government would still know about and have cameras setup for their intelligence agents to laugh at him from.

Besides, it wasn’t like he was doing anything that would be of interest to them. Other than preparing for the eventual collapse of modern society.

For three years, he lived out there like that successfully. A few things changed over that time period. The most significant change came in the form of a new forest ranger being assigned to his area at the start of the current year. The old ranger he’d known for two and a half years retired and he was replaced by a younger woman who was closer to his age. Her name was Laura.

Harvey liked Laura. She was of a similar mind that the sheeple in the cities were best to be avoided. They just had different opinions on how far one should go to avoid them.

“You’ve at least got a radio in there to contact somebody with, right?” He remembered her asking in one of their earlier conversations. They’d met on the road when he was heading back from a supply run in Golding and decided to stop to have a conversation on the wooden guard rail.

“I don’t think that should be any of your concern, Ranger Laura.”

“Wouldn’t be posturing like that if you had one,” she said it with a smile like she knew better. “And it is my concern. I won’t be able to sleep good at night if I end up wandering over to your cabin one day and find you've been half-eaten by a bear or something.”

Harvey grunted. “Whether it be man or bear that trespasses on my property, only one of us is coming out alive.”

“And if the bear is the one that comes out alive?”

“Well, it can take my shotgun as a trophy for winning.”

Laura shook her head. “Suit yourself. As for me, I just like to know that there’s at least some comfort just a quick call away.”

What she said that day stuck with him.

He should have known better than to think that he’d be left alone. Just because something hadn’t happened yet, didn’t mean something wasn’t going to happen. The nail that sticks out of the board gets hammered down and the sheep that wanders off from the flock gets preyed upon.

And so it was that one night near the start of this summer, he spotted a trespasser on his property. It was early in the night. He was finishing up an inspection of some of his supplies and planned to go to bed after.

As soon as he’d finished, however, he spotted streaks of static on multiple of his camera feeds. Through multiple hidden cameras he spotted… something.

It had the shape of a man, but that definitely wasn’t what it was. There weren’t any of the distinctive features of a person on it. It was just a simple black silhouette, dark as a night sky without any stars in it. Even when he looked on his night vision camera, it was just that, a void.

The pictures on Harvey’s screens warped as it walked through them. Harvey had a microphone with output that connected to the speakers he had set up out there, but he didn’t dare to use it. He didn’t have anything to say to whatever that was outside.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

Unfortunately, it had something to say to him.

“Harvey,” he heard a whisper of his name through the headset on his desk. He had audio receivers set up out there too, but he hadn’t turned any of them on yet.

Harvey unplugged his headset from that audio output and plugged it into the emergency satellite phone he had set up. There was static when he turned the satellite phone on. The damned thing was supposed to filter it out and he was getting static when he needed it most.

Whatever. It didn’t matter as long as it still worked.

He looked at the number Ranger Laura had written down for him and dialed it. There wasn’t any doubt in his mind that she couldn’t do anything for him. Heck, he wasn’t sure if there was anyone in the world who could do anything for him right now. He just didn’t want to go out without having said anything.

He was swift to place his eyes back on the camera feeds once he finished dialing the number. Whatever that thing was outside, it hadn’t moved an inch since he looked away.

The phone rang three times through the static. He heard a click and the static stopped after that. There was silence.

“Laura?” he asked. He wasn’t sure if she had even picked up.

Five voices spoke as one. “Did you really think that would work?”

Harvey jumped back in his chair. He rocketed out of it so fast he almost knocked it over.

“Harvey…” the voices whispered his name through his headphones.

“What the hell are you?” he asked, staring at the monster standing in the middle of his yard through his cameras.

“Call us, Strangers…”

“What do you want from me?”

“We have a purpose for you,” it said. “One far greater than what we shall bestow the majority of your fellow men.” Its multiple voices collapsed into one the longer it spoke without pause. As if it was tuning a frequency on a radio.

“And if I were to refuse that purpose?” he asked.

The Stranger didn’t respond.

Something slammed against Harvey’s cabin’s door. He turned to the door. It barely kept to its frame as something hit it with the force of a battering ram over and over.

Harvey turned back to his camera monitor. The Stranger wasn’t in the middle of his yard anymore. It was at his front door.

“Hold on, hold on,” Harvey said, scrambling for his shotgun. “Let’s talk this out!”

He began loading a few shells of buckshot into his gun. “Now, I’m not necessarily opposed to fulfilling whatever purpose you have for me,” he lied through his teeth, “But you’re going to have to stop banging at my door if you want me to do anything.”

The Stranger’s beating against his door stopped.

“Good,” Harvey said. He raised his loaded gun and pointed at the door. “Now, are you going to tell me what this purpose you want me to fulfill is?”

“You don’t understand, Harvey,” the Stranger spoke with its five voices.

“I don’t understand what?” he asked.

“Put down the gun, Harvey.”

That gave him pause. Either it could see him or it had some other way of telling what he was doing. “Why?” Harvey asked, adjusting his aim and posture. “Are you scared?”

Harvey heard five gasping breaths, but heard when they breathed out. He just heard the explosion that followed.

His door erupted from its frame and hinges like it had been hit by a bomb. Dust filled the cabin, obscuring Harvey’s vision.

A rapid force slammed into him as he fired his gun in the direction of the Stranger, knocking him to the ground. Harvey coughed. The air had been knocked out of his lungs and the air that replaced it was filled with dust.

For a few seconds after he had finally managed to catch his breath, there was silence. Harvey couldn’t see the Stranger. The only thing that had come into his cabin from outside was the cloud of dust.

“Harvey?” he heard Laura speak through his headset. There was heavy static. “What was that noise? Are you okay?”

A strong force came over Harvey. It lifted him into the air and sent him flying towards the door of his cabin.

“Laura!” he shouted. The headphones fell from his head as he rocketed forward. He looked towards the door’s direction. Through the dust, he could see the Stranger.

Harvey raised his gun and fired. The force jerked him violently. He was sent spinning out of his cabin and into his front yard, slamming onto the ground.

He grunted, but he didn’t let the pain slow him down. Harvey flipped over and pointed his gun back at his front porch.

The Stranger was gone.

No, it wasn’t. Harvey sat up and saw it laid out on the ground in front of his cabin.

He stood up, then jogged over to it. “You still alive,” he asked it. He had his gun pointed at its head.

The Stranger didn’t respond and it didn’t move. Harvey fired two more shots—one in its dome and one in its chest—just in case. He almost grabbed its arms so he could drag it out into the yard. Then he realized he wasn’t even sure it was safe to touch the thing.

Now that a bit of the adrenaline was wearing off, he was thinking a bit more clearly. Rather than getting rid of this thing, he needed to be getting out of here.

He rushed over to his car and then back into the cabin when he remembered he didn’t have his keys on him. He picked up his satellite phone—and a few more rounds for his gun—while he was inside. He put his ear to the phone, but found that Laura had already hung up.

Harvey tried calling her again while he ran out to his car. Before he could make it to the car’s door While he was running over to his car he tried calling her again.

Before he could make it to his car door a blinding white light filled his yard. That’s when Harvey remembered what the monster had said. Strangers not Stranger.

Whatever that thing lying in his yard was, it wasn’t alone.