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  ‘No, let me’ smiled Joan as she just touched his arm ‘if we wait for you to get up to speed it’ll be Christmas before we get home’ she joked.

  Then Joan whispered in Stuart’s ear.

  ‘Let me look after her’ and he just smiled and gratefully nodded his head.

  ‘I don’t know I’m not that unfit I’ll have you both know’ Stuart now stated indignantly.

  ‘Go on, old man, you need your afternoon nap’ laughed Joan as Jenny managed to raise a smile.

  Then though, she began to look down again.

  ‘But all those people, Dad, we must be able to do something to save them?’

  ‘Best not to think about it, Jenny’ he told her then he nodded to Joan to look after her before he returned to speak to Jack again.

  ‘Is Jenny going to be all right?’ asked Jack.

  ‘Yes, I think so’ Stuart nodded ‘I think anyone would be shaken up after seeing what she’s just witnessed’ he added.

  ‘I was just lucky’ commented Jack ‘I was just too busy trying to turn this thing around to see too much’ he commented.

  ‘Believe you me, Jack, no one in his right mind would want to see what Jenny’s unfortunately just seen’ added Stuart.

  ‘Was it really that bad?’ asked Jack curiously.

  ‘Well if you call seeing men and women being killed and then being completely devoured, then yes, it was’ nodded Stuart. ‘It was more than I could stomach, let alone a seventeen year old’ he admitted.

  Then he noticed Jack looked very worried himself.

  ‘What’s up, Jack, are you OK yourself?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m just hoping they can’t get on top of this giant building we’re travelling over, they might be able to reach us from there and to be honest I’m struggling to get this thing to go any higher’ he admitted.

  ‘But there seem to be no windows or anything for them to climb up’ observed Stuart as he gazed down.

  ‘That doesn’t mean there aren’t any’ replied Jack nervously ‘I’ll tell you, this building is just weird’ he added.

  ‘What makes you think it’s a building?’ asked Stuart as Jack just gave him a curious look.

  ‘But it must be, what else can it be?’ he puzzled.

  Then he looked at Stuart as he shook his head.

  ‘Oh, you’re not seriously telling me it’s a spaceship?’

  ‘Why not?’ replied Stuart.

  ‘But it can’t be? I mean, the sheer size of it, how could something as gigantic as that land on Earth and none of us even know about it?’ Jack queried.

  ‘But if they discovered a way to neutralise all our electricity how could we even detect it? And a jet black spaceship could just slip through our atmosphere at night undetected and unseen out here by anyone’ suggested Stuart.

  Jack was just nodding his head now.

  ‘I’d say you were quite mad, Stuart, if what you said didn’t make good scientific reasoning’ he agreed ‘and anyway, after seeing those weird creatures I’d believe just about anything you told me right now.’

  ‘Will anyone believe us though?’ questioned Stuart.

  ‘Well they damn well better as someone’s got to stop these things from killing people and quickly!’ stated Jack angrily.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Day Five:

  11th January 2021

  Pentagon H.Q.

  Arlington Court,

  Virginia, U.S.A.

  The airship had regained its engine power again the very second they left the dead zone.

  Then the next day, Stuart, Joan, Jack, and Jenny were all flown to the newly set up Pentagon H.Q. along with the film they took ready for processing.

  They then informed General O’Dowd of their findings, which of course, he found hard to take seriously.

  The President himself was present when they finally brought the processed film into the meeting room for everyone to see. Fortunately, the old cine camera and its old fashioned film were one of the few things that had still worked during their journey.

  ‘HERE IT IS!’ shouted a Pentagon worker in a white coat as he rushed the film into the meeting room. He then handed it to another man who quickly loaded it into a specially adapted projector.

  ‘OK, LOWER THE LIGHTS PLEASE!’ shouted the worker as everyone instantly stopped talking and instead turned their attention to the large screen in front of them.

  ‘God Damn!’ uttered General Iram as he stared at the screen ‘what is this, a nature film or something?’

  ‘No, General, this is showing the unusual behaviour of all the animals in the area’ explained Stuart.

  Then he moved to the front and jumped up next to the screen.

  ‘If you notice, we have huge numbers of animals all gathering together, but more importantly, we even have animals grouping together that would usually be mortal enemies’ explained Stuart.

  ‘But is that an elephant next to cattle?’ queried one scientist.

  ‘Yes, there are even zoo animals out there’ nodded Stuart.

  ‘But how’s that even possible?’ puzzled one of the military men.

  ‘We think either the keepers released them or they just escaped’ replied Stuart.

  ‘And gee whiz, there’s a tiger in with a herd of wild deer’ another military man puzzled.

  ‘More to the point, it doesn’t seem to be making any attempt to attack anything?’ puzzled one of the scientists.

  ‘Exactly!’ nodded Stuart.

  ‘But how is this all possible?’ all the scientists now pondered as they all quietly talked amongst themselves.

  ‘It is because they are all fleeing’ suggested one scientist.

  ‘Fleeing?’ all the others puzzled ‘fleeing from what exactly?’

  Just then, the large black building came into shot and they were suddenly all completely quiet again.

  ‘What the hell is that?’ queried General O’Dowd ‘some sort of building or something?’

  ‘We’re not sure, General’ admitted Stuart ‘we were hoping you could tell us? Has the government perhaps built this as a secret research facility or something?’ queried Stuart.

  ‘Not that I’m aware of’ puzzled the General as he ordered someone to have it checked out.

  ‘But it’s massive!’ observed one of the scientists watching the film.

  ‘Precisely’ nodded Stuart ‘we believe it to be over a mile across and either circular or slightly oval in shape.’

  Another scientist was looking down at a head computer and he took the eye piece off before he looked up.

  ‘No, I can’t find any building in that location on any search I’ve just done and that’s whether highly classified at the highest level or otherwise’ he announced.

  ‘It’s not a secret government building then?’ concluded another scientist.

  ‘No, definitely not’ announced the man ‘I can confirm the US government doesn’t have any such facility in that location and never has had’ he announced firmly. ‘Also I’ve done a search as to anyone owning any such building and that too has come up negative’ he explained.

  ‘Then what the hell is it?’ asked General O’Dowd.

  Stuart now took a deep breath before answering.

  ‘General, we believe it is a spaceship’ he openly admitted.

  Instantly there was uproar in the room as there were cries of ‘nonsense!’ and ‘what is this rubbish?’

  Just then though, the shots Jenny took passed the giant building came into view and they could see her quickly zooming in on something moving.

  All of a sudden everyone in the room just fell completely silent.

  ‘But what are those figures? Are they people or something?’ queried General Iram screwing up his eyes as he tried to make out exactly what he was now looking at.

  Now though, the pictures steadied and they could all see exactly what
was going on.

  ‘But what is this? Is it a science fiction film or something?’ queried General O’Dowd as he just stared at the screen.

  Stuart just shook his head solemnly.

  ‘I’m afraid not, General’ he answered as he could now barely look up at the screen himself.

  ‘Oh my God, they’re killing people!’ uttered a scientist as he almost fell off his chair in shock.

  ‘We need an explanation of this Professor Keys, Now! What is the meaning of you showing us these horrors?’ General O’Dowd demanded angrily.

  ‘But these are the scenes my daughter filmed, General’ Stuart replied honestly as the General then looked to Joan for a confirmation.

  ‘It’s true, General, I wish to God it were not’ she uttered as everyone was now stunned into complete silence as they now all looked completely horrified as they watched the shocking scenes Jenny had just about managed to film.

  ‘Two of them got on board my blimp!’ added Jack.

  ‘But how was that possible, you must have been flying low?’ queried another scientist.

  ‘Nope, one climbed up one of the mooring ropes and I don’t know how the other one got onboard’ Jack admitted. ‘If it were not for Stuart risking his life by leaning out to kick one of them off and Joan for smashing the second one in the face with a fire extinguisher, I would not be here talking to you right now’ he admitted.

  Everyone in the room now looked very shocked indeed.

  ‘Then these things are for real?’ questioned someone in military uniform.

  ‘You’d better bet your gold medal they’re for real, Soldier’ added Jack.

  Then he turned his attention to General O’Dowd.

  ‘General, these things are fast, really fast, they can run we estimate at least 30 MPH. What’s more their bodies seem incredibly strong. Why, we dropped one from my blimp from a height of around sixty feet and it just got up and walked away uninjured’ explained Jack now looking very serious indeed.

  The President now looked up at the horrific scenes again and asked for the projector to be immediately turned off.

  ‘I’ve seen enough! Can we turn this off and have the lights up again please’ he stated firmly.

  ‘Mr President, these things can also jump incredibly high, why the two that got onboard must have jumped thirty feet or more to have grabbed hold of our mooring ropes. Why, we never dreamed we were in any danger that high up’ stated Stuart.

  ‘But what the hell are these monsters?’ asked the President.

  ‘We believe they are a cricket or grass hopper like creature’ interrupted Joan.

  ‘But exactly how big are these things?’ asked the President.

  ‘Our height’ shrugged Joan ‘well, at least, your height, Mr President, I’m only five foot four’ she added.

  ‘But we saw millions of them up on the screen?’ puzzled the President ‘how the hell did they get here?’

  ‘We, well rather I believe that large black building is in fact a spaceship’ replied Stuart firmly.

  ‘Nonsense!’ uttered a scientist sitting nearby.

  Then he turned to speak to the President.

  ‘Mr President, our satellites would detect anything even the size of a bag of sugar landing on Earth, let alone anything that big’ he insisted.

  ‘Well, the evidence of my eyes proves you very wrong, Bud’ answered Jack indignantly.

  ‘But it looks like there are so many of these creatures’ uttered the President now looking deeply shocked.

  ‘Could they have not come up from the ground?’ suggested one scientist ‘I mean they look like some kind of insect, perhaps ants of some kind?’

  ‘Are we talking in terms of giant ants? It sounds like we’re all in some sort of God damned B movie now’ uttered General O’Dowd.

  ‘Could they have come up from the ground though?’ pondered another of the scientists as they all began discussing it.

  ‘You’re all forgetting one thing’ uttered Joan, as they all stopped talking and just looked around at her. ‘Where did that giant building come from if these things simply came up out of the ground? Something that massive couldn’t have just appeared up out of the ground overnight’ she insisted.

  ‘At this point in time I don’t care where they came from, I just want to know how we are going to stop them’ interrupted the President.

  ‘Don’t worry, Mr President, we’ll send the army in!’ stated General O’Dowd forcefully.

  ‘That won’t work’ insisted Stuart ‘they can somehow prevent our electricity from working and also prevent anything from igniting as well.’

  ‘Hence none of your guns or bombs will work, General’ insisted Joan.

  ‘Then how do we kill these things?’ puzzled General O’Dowd.

  ‘We don’t know’ replied Jack honestly as he just shrugged his shoulders.

  ‘We don’t know?’ uttered the President ‘well that’s no good. We have people being violently killed out there so we’ve got to somehow get in there and wipe these monsters out!’

  ‘If I might make a suggestion?’ asked Stuart as the President just nodded his head. ‘If we could rig something up on the airship, we could then capture one of these creatures and then perhaps discover their weaknesses.’

  ‘Are you mad?’ questioned Jack ‘we’ve only just had a lucky escape getting back the first time!’

  ‘We’ve got to do this though, Jack, otherwise millions of people could die if we don’t find a way to somehow stop these things’ insisted Stuart.

  ‘He’s right, Jack, if we could capture just one of them, we might find an answer to how they cancel out our electricity or ability to light flame. Then we might get our weapons back on track’ suggested Joan.

  ‘But where the hell did these things come from anyway?’ asked the President again.

  ‘As I’ve already said, Mr President, I believe the only explanation is that they are from outer space’ nodded Stuart.

  ‘But I keep telling you, that’s impossible’ disagreed the head of NASA, a man called John Isaacs.

  ‘But you’ve seen the film for yourself, John, does that look impossible?’ replied Jack as he butted in.

  ‘So you’re asking us all to believe a spaceship over a mile wide landed on Earth and none of our tracking devices even detected it?’ he scoffed.

  ‘In a word, yes!’ insisted Stuart.

  ‘Seeing as every electronic tracking device wouldn’t work and was switched off by them, I would say it’s definitely possible, wouldn’t you?’ argued Joan.

  Arguments were breaking out amongst all the scientists now.

  ‘HOLD ON! HOLD ON!’ shouted the President and everyone was silent again.

  ‘Now let me get this straight again. You’re saying these things can render all our electrical devices obsolete and stop anything from igniting?’

  ‘Yes, no kind of flame can be ignited, Mr President and hence that mere fact will prevent any of our weapons from working’ added Jack quickly.

  The President just paused for a second.

  ‘OK and added to this they can run at least 30 MPH, they can be smashed in the face hard with a heavy metal object and not even be marked, they can jump up to thirty feet high, they can fall over sixty feet and not sustain even as much as a scratch and you’re seriously asking me to believe all this stuff?’ the President finally recapped.

  ‘In a word, yes!’ replied Stuart, Joan and Jack all together.

  ‘My God!’ uttered the President ‘then how on earth are we going to stop them?’

  ‘Let me send in our troops, Mr President, we’ll fight them hand to hand’ suggested General O’Dowd.

  ‘Then you’ll be sending them all in to be slaughtered!’ uttered Joan angrily.

  ‘Then we’ll pound them from afar’ insisted General Iram.

  ‘When will you all understand?’ shrugged Joan throwin
g up her arms in frustration. ‘None of your conventional firearms or bombs will work against these things, NONE of them!’

  ‘I’ve heard enough!’ insisted the President ‘I elect we capture one of these creatures and discover it’s weaknesses as Professor Keys suggests and we do so just as quickly as possible.’

  ‘I’ll go!’ immediately volunteered Stuart, but the President to his surprise shook his head.

  ‘No, Professor Keys, we need you here or at least outside the dead zone area to create a prison for this creature that it won’t be able to escape from. You’ve witnessed these creatures at first hand and so would be best served in organising a prison to safely contain one of them’ insisted the President.

  ‘Professor Mellows we need you to design some kind of grab capable of capturing one of these creatures’ he then added ‘could you organise that?’

  ‘Yes of course, Mr President, I already have an idea for that’ she smiled as many more scientists also offered to help.

  ‘But, Mr President, what do we tell the press?’ one of his personal team now asked.

  ‘We tell them nothing’ he insisted.

  ‘But surely we need to get all the people out of California?’ queried another scientist.

  ‘We can’t get them out’ interrupted Stuart.

  ‘Why on earth not?’ The scientist queried.

  ‘We simply don’t know how to’ replied Jack as Stuart and Joan both shrugged their shoulders together.

  ‘Don’t you think at least one of our power company experts would have come out by now, if they could have?’ suggested another of the scientists. ‘Why they must have sent in hundreds of people by now, you’d think at least some of them would have escaped if they really could have?’ he questioned.

  ‘And two complete platoons of our troops already’ nodded General O’Dowd.

  ‘What? Then why wasn’t we told about that?’ demanded Joan.

  ‘It was a top secret operation on a strictly ‘need to know’ basis’ the General replied.

  ‘GENTLEMAN AND LADIES LET US NOT WASTE ANY MORE TIME ARGUING! LET’S GET TO WORK TO BEAT THESE MONSTERS AND RESCUE ALL OUR PEOPLE TRAPPED IN THE DEAD ZONE!’ demanded the President as everyone nodded in agreement or saluted him as he then marched out!