Kenny and his older brother Rixy set out early in the morning, after a hearty, wholesome breakfast lovingly made by their mother. In the late sixties, the unincorporated town of Arroyo Grande boasted a population of only a few hundred people. The broad alluvial fan hills were lightly speckled in small family homes with hard-fought lawns of crabgrass, leafy succulents, and stunted palms. The hills of the central California desert stayed green well into summer, with light storms feeding a small creek that skirted the salt flats. Although it was too briny to drink, it did provide some coolness during the midday and afternoon, light breezes carrying the scent of damp sandy stretches, and the few plants that somehow managed to thrive beside the brackish stream. They trekked north for a while, skirting the base of the hills while there was still some shade.
Having no determined destination, they hiked casually up the valley, allowing ample time to explore whatever piqued their curiosity. Rixy considered himself an amateur birdwatcher. In addition to the large predatory raptors that could be seen circling in gyres above the desert, small shrub-covered patches were havens to tiny songbirds and seed eaters who tended to hide away from their larger relations. Bird watching gave Rixy an adequate excuse to occasionally stop their hike and peer through his field glasses at the slightest twitch or tremor in a distant branch.
Around midday they rested beside a deep meander that would eventually mark the legal edge of Arroyo Grande, although back then, it was merely a snarled old creosote tree clinging to a sandy bend in the stream. It provided enough shelter that they could lay out in the cool shade, peel off their boots and socks, and rest their feet in the surprisingly cool water. Even though they had only traveled a few miles as the crow flies, it seemed to them that they were great explorers, striking a new trail through uncharted territory and they acted suitably exhausted, discussing exactly what sort of unexpected hardships might lay ahead for them.
The first high clouds were welcomed as they set out in the afternoon. Providing even brief respite from the sun, they crossed the thin strip of asphalt two-lane and hiked a little up the hill, hoping to encounter some new adventure. Before long, the wind picked up, bringing more clouds, deeper and heavier than the first, that hung over the valley ominously, allowing only scattered god beams to shine through. Kenny knew that his brother was an excellent orienteer, but he did have some misgivings about the weather. Only through some casual but persistent commentary did Kenny convince his brother to find a suitable place to set up camp.
Rixy had his own concerns about the rains, so they hiked further up the hill, aiming towards a place high on a ridge or at the top of a large arroyo, hoping to find someplace safe from the storm runoff. As the clouds continued to gather, they chose a spot surrounded by large boulders with a large flat space at the center. It was wide enough to build a proper camp. Rixy pitched their A-frame tent, built a fire ring, and draped a heavy canvas tarp over the larger rocks and lashed it down. As the clouds broke, they started their dinner preparations.
They cooked hot dogs using bent wire hangers and warmed a can of chili with beans in the coals at the edge of their fire. They washed their mess kits a good distance from camp to discourage rodents from scavenging, and settled around the fire to roast marshmallows, eating the chocolate bars and graham crackers raw. They entertained each other with ghost stories, plotlines borrowed from comic books, and jokes they both already knew. The camp stayed dry despite the rain falling harder with each hour.
Kenny didn't like the thunder and lightning. Squatting under a rainfly on an open hillside the lightning flashes were startling, and the thunder was terrifying, rolling all the way across the open valley to crash against the hillside like a great wave. As the night wore on, the wind tested their lashings and the rain drove at them, tilting sideways until the only shelter was inside the tent. When they had finally run out of stories to tell each other, they squatted silently, listening to the heavy rains batter the tarp.
The explosion was above the adjacent valley, a bright orange and yellow ball of fire appearing silently at first. Rixy counted the seconds, calculating the distance until they heard the rumble. Instead, they heard a single hollow “Boom!” Rixy confidently claimed that the explosion was probably just a signal flare.
But they felt it as much as they heard it, an effervescent crackle just under the clatter of the heavy rain against the tarp. The fiery blue ball seemed to grow just above the valley floor. It ricocheted against the hardpan once, twice, skipping over the surface like a smooth stone and struck the base of the hill. Cartwheeling into the air again, the big, blue fireball narrowly missed the waxed canvas tarp and sluiced them both with hot mud. It impacted the ridge just above them, bulldozing a tower of mud and rocks with the thick slushy roar of an uphill landslide. Crackling with a softening blue light, it hummed in an octave so low that it seemed to buzz in their bones. The remaining dark wad shuddered electric tendrils into the rain-soaked hillside before it slumped back into the shallow, muddy impact crater. The rain thrummed against the waxed canvas tarp, running down to the corners to drizzle off into small puddles.
Painted in wet mud, Kenny and Rixy stared at each other for a moment, only faintly aware that they had very nearly died. Rixy laughed excitedly to let his brother know that everything was going to be okay. After a few deep breaths and nervous chuckles, they both turned to the thing that had just dropped out of the sky.
The top was clean, smooth, and glossy, and glistened in the flicker of the lightning strikes. The bottom was heavily damaged. Tilted edge up on a medium-sized rock to expose its shredded belly, the whole thing steamed in bubbling mud, ticking and hissing lightly in the falling rain. The gaping hole in the bottom smoked, an insidious opaque tendril drifting listlessly from the gaping wound; it smelled of matches and burned metal. Rixy had seen enough World War II serials to know that airplanes fell out of the sky sometimes, and inevitably someone had to check to see if the pilot was still alive. He waved the wisp of smoke from his face as he approached the hole, just big enough for someone his size to crawl in. Tying his kerchief up over his nose and mouth he shined his flashlight into the empty hole.
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
While Kenny had seen the exact same movies that Rixy had, he would not have thought that the thing in the mud looked anything at all like a WWII aircraft. “What are you doing?” Kenny asked, worried about the pillar of mud looming over the dark shape.
“I’m going to get the pilot,” Rixy called, just audible over the hollow ring of the rain falling against the dark dome. He dropped to his knees in the mud, and ducking under the curved edge, followed his flashlight into the shredded scar just as the mud tower began dropping fat wet clumps onto the glossy convex surface. The rain washed those over the side, sliding over the sleek exterior to drop and collect at the edge with a fat plopping noise that would have been much funnier were it not for the situation. “Rixy? Rixy come out of there!” but the rain thrummed against the hull and tarp. A flash of lightning nearby startled Kenny into silence. In the brief glimmer, he thought he saw the top of the mud wall tilting. As the thunder rolled up the hillside, he heard a heavy wad of mud fall to the slick surface and slide straight over the curved edge to half bury Rixy’s legs.
“Rixy!” Kenny screamed, but Rixy’s legs didn’t move. Kenny lurched out into the rain, diving in to dig his brother out from under the muck. The sides of the hole collapsed as he scooped frantically, his fingers cold and numb clawing through the gravel-thick mud. But Rixy didn’t move, his legs didn’t move. If he was alright, he would be struggling to get out. The mud continued to flow down from above, slowly filling in what Kenny scooped away.
When he saw Rixy’s belt he grabbed ahold of it, tugging, but he couldn’t budge his big brother’s limp body more than a few inches. Rixy’s hiking boots dug into the mud. Kenny didn’t know that he was crying and screaming. Panicking, he lost his grip, stumbled backward, and landed in the mud. Scrambling to his knees he seized his brother’s ankles, tugging and stretching backward with everything he had left. Rixy’s waterlogged body slid out of the cold shell. Kenny strained further, dragging him free of the disk just as the mud tower collapsed, burying the disk in wet granite gravel slurry.
Soaked through to the skin, and violently cold, Kenny knew he had to get Rixy into the tent and get him warm again. When he stopped pulling, he heard the never-ending rainfall pattering against their battered shelter. He cried through his terror until he was angry enough to drag his brother’s limp body back under the tarp, and eventually, all the way into the tent. Exhausted, limbs wet and heavy, he fell asleep.
He awoke sometime later. Not long. The tent was dark. The rain continued to batter the tent and tarp, a gentle roar and constant patter of water pooling at the corners of the tarp. He shivered, still wearing his rain-soaked clothes, and realized that Rixy was still wet and clammy as well. Even as a Cub Scout, Kenny was aware of the dangers of exposure sickness, and hypothermia, and knew that it was possible to get it in the best conditions. Trapped in a Scout-issue canvas tent in the middle of a thunderstorm and right next to a meteorite crater weren’t the best conditions. It was a struggle to get his brother out of his wet clothes, but he pushed Rixy into one of the sleeping bags and zipped him up in there. He changed his own clothes, but most of the equipment was damp or wet, so his spare clothes were cold when he put them on. He crawled into his own sleeping bag which was at least mostly dry inside. He cried himself to sleep, strangely lulled by the steady, driving rainfall against the tent sides and canvas tarp.
The storm continued through the night, although the lightning and thunder moved East over the hills. The steady rainfall and exhaustion kept Kenny cocooned until well after dawn, and he woke to the ongoing rain. Rixy had not moved at all, one knee still slightly bent, and his face turned towards Kenny with a sort of bemused but content expression. Were it not for the pale, cold skin and the mud drying on his cheeks and hair, Rixy might be sleeping. Kenny didn’t bother to go outside the tent to relieve himself. Instead, he knelt beside the tent flaps and peed into the puddle that surrounded them.
He moved whatever was still just damp to the drier part of the tent and used some of their old wet clothes to wipe the mud off of Rixy’s face; he looked even more peaceful all cleaned up. Kenny tried to get Rixy more comfortable, stretching him out straight and resting his hands over his chest. His skin was cold and clammy, and his lips had gone from pale to slightly blue.
Certain that Rixy would die otherwise, Kenny stripped off his damp clothes and crawled into the sleeping bag beside his brother, curling around him to conserve warmth, just as indicated in the soggy Boy Scout’s manual. Shivering violently, Kenny clung to his unresponsive brother, trying his best to prevent the exposure sickness from running its course. The emergency search and rescue personnel found them that way the following afternoon, the two naked brothers huddled together in a urine-soaked sleeping bag, hypothermic, dehydrated, and deeply traumatized.
* * *
While the defining feature of the event was indeed the crash landing of something, possibly extraterrestrial, but definitely intriguing, what was forgotten by most of the agents throughout the interrogation process was just how absolutely terrifying the entire experience was. Trapped for three days of desert storms, soaked to the bone, hypothermic, and traumatized, with his brother catatonic, young Kent Vickers had learned definitively how cruel and chaotic the uncontrolled outside world could be. Whether it was truly alien or not, Dr. Vickers had to find it. If his brother went catatonic by touching the ship, he quietly hoped that touching it again might bring him back somehow.
Returning home early enough that he could almost pretend his morning was merely an unavoidable business meeting, Dr. Vickers felt relieved. Safe within the controlled environment of his own home, he double locked the door, set the chain, and felt his shoulders unwind slightly. He untied his bowtie, draping it over the back of his personal dressing rack, hung his jacket off the back, and feeling somewhat constricted, unbuttoned both his cuffs and collar. While it was not a special occasion, he thought that perhaps a small glass of brandy might help to sooth his frayed nerves a bit. After dinner, but at a reasonable hour, he would contact chief Martinez and have a long talk with him regarding the behavior of these new investigative agents. He was certain that if he was clear with regards to setting certain boundaries, Chief Martinez would undoubtedly rein in his agents. Satisfied that he was again in control of the situation, Dr. Vickers took a snifter from the rack beside the small wet bar and poured himself a dram of dark liquid, cradling it near his palm to warm the liquid. He swirled it around the bell to release its oaky aroma and took a polite sip, savoring the warm liquor.