Worse things, besides.
If you had it to do over again, I asked him, Would you still tell anyone?
As discreetly as I could I slid my phone closer to him.
Rythik
I hoped any of it would pick up over the noise of the jukebox.
Creaky old country tunes warbled out of the smoke-yellowed old Rock-Ola.
Hell no, I wouldnt.
Not after the way they drug our names through the mud!
He said, whiskey-stained spittle showering the sleeve of my jacket.
Not ever, not since the hysteria of the Breckenridge Saucer People finally died down once and for all.
Not since his supposedNervous Breakdown.
Now, exactly four tumblers of moderately expensive scotch later, the tip appeared to be paying off.
He seemed to want to talk about it.
I just had to be very careful not to spook him.
My whiskey, however, had been cut with a generous quantity of tonic water.
I needed to keep my head clear and I had never been much of a drinker.
Softly, almost idly, I said, For what its worth, I always believed you.
This much was true.
I can admit that.
Ever since I was young I had been fascinated by all things creepy and mysterious.
At the age of eight I was president of the local Bigfoot fan club.
It was then that I resolved to hear the tale straight from the horses mouth.
The moment was finally here.IfI didnt mess it up.
Youre a good egg, Jimmy.
Thank you, sir, I said, hoping I sounded sincere.
I sensed Gruncle Kelly had a keen bullshit detector.
I know what a sore subject it is for you, of course.
I caught the bartenders eye and ordered a refill of both our drinks.
Seemingly unperturbed by my prodding, Kelly accepted the drink graciously, tipping the glass to me.
I clinked my glass against his.
To family, said the man I had seen less than half a dozen times my entire life.
To family, I agreed, smiling.
We both drained our drinks in a single gulp.
We never said they was from space, not once.
No, 71 it was.
But we never said they were aliens.
He fell silent and I motioned for the bartender, but Kelly only shook his head.
I ordered another round anyway, and Kelly sipped at his in spite of himself.
Now it happened around Halloween and I guess that didnt do much for our credibility.
Never mind we were each of us full grown adults by then with jobs and families.
Some of us were, at least.
That just left public opinion divided between crazy, drunk, or liars.
Now I ask you, just what would we have to gain from lying about a thing like that?
Nothing that I can think of, I readily admitted.
Privately, I could think of a few reasons.
Small town types loved a chance to feel important, get their names in the paper.
They loved milking people like myself for free drinks.
All sorts of reasons.
Besides me and Billy there was my cousin Jake and his wife Sheila and my best friend Sonny Chestnut.
Turns out we didnt do much of either.
I said, trying to fill the silence.
Those damned things showed up, for one.
Kinda put a damper on the whole affair, I guess you could say.
But first it was the weather.
Warm, for October.
Weather was clear and sunny all day long, until it wasnt.
We were halfway down the trail when the skies clouded over, and just like that, BAM!
Sky clouds over, crack of lightning, and just like that it was pouring.
The five of us just hunkered down and ran for the cabin.
I guess you were probably disappointed.
Eh, not so much.
Maybe Sheila was ticked off and old Billy was carryin on from the rain and the chill.
My daddy told me no one likes a complainer but I guess no one told Billy.
Not too long before it was good and cozy.
And yeah, we had ourselves a few cold beers, what about it?
Drunks my ass we were country.
Country boys can handle a couple of cold beers without hallucinatin pink elephants or green men.
We was in our right minds.
Hell, Sheila saw them first and she wasnt even drinking.
She was maybe six months pregnant with Joshua at that point.
I had the poker hand of my life, I remember that.
He was scowling like a bulldog licking piss off a nettle.
All us men jumped up to see what was the matter.
I figured she had seen a bobcat or some such or maybe an owl.
Turns out, it was neither.
I asked, already envisioning the bug-eyed martians depicted in the famous artists conception.
I was the first person to hop out of the chair and see what was the matter.
Like we was fascinating to it.
It was standing like a man, but it wasnt little.
Hell, wasnt green neither.
It was the pale yella color of old paper.
I exclaimed, drawn into his account.
Kelly sipped at his whiskey, woolgathering.
Ten foot tall if it was an inch!
Kelly declared, Had these long, gangling arms.
They walked with them, like a gorilla.
Quick, and graceful-like.
Bet you never saw that in the tabloids!
I shook my head, not wanting to throw the old man off his rhythm.
It seemed he wanted to get this story off his chest more than he cared to admit.
I lit a cigarette, a lapse into an old, bad habit.
I always smoked when I drank.
The old man gestured for a cigarette and I gave him one.
He lit it, took a long drag, and went back to his story.
But Im getting ahead of myself!
Kelly said, now gesturing with the cigarette to punctuate his speech.
He seemed so much more lively, more animated than he had been the entire night.
From the corners of my eyes I could see the bartender and the bars few other patrons listening in.
I betrayed no evidence of this realization and he did not seem to notice.
As I said, it was only the one at first, watching us.
It was watching us curiously, as I think I have said.
With intelligence, I mean.
Its hard to explain correctly just how I could tell, but I could.
In my days Ive been stared down by everything from a hosscat to a mama grizzly once in Yellowstone.
I never forgot it.
Must have been staring at the thing for ten, fifteen seconds, just frozen in place.
Didnt know what to do or think.
It was Billy broke the spell.
Hollered out something like The hells that?!
Just like that I grabbed my thirty-aught six and a deer-spottin light, stormed out the door.
Sonny came along right after me with his rifle.
It was staring right at us, bright glowing eyes full of some unspeakable malice.
Sonny and me, we didnt think twice, stopped dead in our tracks.
Sonny leveled his rifle and put a bullet right square in the middle of the damned thing.
I shone my flashlight down on it, hollering at Sonny that hed killed it.
Wasnt a moment later the thing sprung up like nothing was wrong and loped off into the darkness.
There it was, bulletproof aliens.
That, at least, had appeared in all the tabloid stories of the account.
The token police investigation found evidence of nothing apart from the actions of trigger-happy drunks.
Did you give a shot to chase it down?
I asked, my first speech in quite a while.
He had fallen silent and stared down at his whiskey.
We did, Kelly nodded, looking up from his drink.
I was surprised by how alert he seemed, how energized.
Sonny and I took off after the thing, as we had assumed it was the only one.
We just looked at each other and ran back hell bent for leather.
All around us we could hear movement in the trees, more things coming.
By the time we was in sight of the cabin we could see them too.
Made a kind of high pitched noise at us that hurt my ears.
All the while the things was closing in on us.
I pounded on the door and hollered until Jake finally let us in.
That must have been a tense moment, I suggested.
I saw how those things could move, properly motivated.
Looking back on it, any one of them coulda grabbed us, if they wanted.
I think they must have been toying with us.
Who could say what things like that were thinking?
We barred up the doors and prepared ourselves for a siege.
They were standing at every window now, staring in at us like bugs in a jar.
They all looked more or less the same, like old men.
Old men older than the oldest man you ever seen by maybe about 500 years.
He paused, considering, and corrected, They never was human.
Im sure of that.
Close enough you could call them men, after a fashion, but never human.
They were things from somewhere outside of what you or I know.
Outside People, I said, softly.
Im not ashamed to admit how drawn into the mans story I was.
He looked at me and nodded, Thats right.
Or at least, thats close enough.
Only, as soon as any of them tried wed fire a couple of rounds into them.
It didnt stop them, but it would sort of discourage them for a spell.
I asked, What did they say?
He shook his head, Never could understand them.
But Ill tell you one more thing for free, I didnt like it.
Like to make my skin crawl.
You couldnt listen to it too hard, neither.
It got to you, started pulling you towards the door.
We learned that all too late when we lost Billy.
We was spread out keeping an eye out at every window when we heard the door slam.
Wasnt long before I gathered he took off out the door.
Sonny said he saw Billys face as he ran out into the yard.
There wasnt nothing in his eyes no more, he was gone.
He just disappeared into the darkness and we never saw him again.
The things got bolder after that.
By the time the sun was peeking out above the horizon they were starting to thin out.
By the time it was properly light out, they were gone.
If Billy hadnt run off like that and disappeared, we never would have told anyone what we saw.
Lucky we didnt spend the rest of our lives in prison.
Did you ever go back?
Oh yeah, he told me, Many times.
We never saw hide nor hair of them again.
Hadnt been up since then.
Do you think you could take me there?
I couldnt help myself.
What could be a more perfect end to my story than with a visit to the legendary cabin itself?
But I never expected him to say yes.
Aint quite midnight yet, and Im still feeling plucky.
I still had twice that in bribe money tucked into my wallet, so I quickly agreed.
The mood was understandably strange.
I thought of alien landscapes where ancient, withered beings held an inscrutable court.
That such places might be located a short, thirty-minute drive down the highway fascinated me.
I took a deep breath and realized I was frightened, in spite of myself.
I choked out a weak laugh and drove on through the winding path.
After a time we reached a gate, which Kelly assured me would be unlocked.
I told him to sit tight and jumped out of the truck to open it.
The gate was held closed by a loop of baling wire, which I unwound easily enough.
The gate swung on rusted hinges screeching loud enough to wake the entire woods.
Just a mite further, Kelly assured me as I climbed back into the cab.
Good, good, I said, softly.
Why was I so rattled?
I was acting like what could only be described as a Silly Goose.
The driveway stretched on for another quarter mile or so, where we finally reached the cabin.
It looked as though it had seen better days, which did not surprise me.
The roof and the windows were mostly intact, which genuinelydidsurprise me.
Most houses in town didnt look so good.
Think Ill sit here and wait for you if you dont mind, Kelly said, eyes half-lidded.
Mind keeping the heat running?
Yeah, I said, distracted.
I took out my phone to switch on the flashlight function and swore.
I had left the voice recorder running and it was nearly out of juice.
Enough for those pictures, I hoped.
I walked up the deck by moonlight, slowly so as to avoid falling through a rotted board.
As I slid it into the lock the quiet was broken by the blare of the trucks horn.
The old man leaned out the drivers side window and laughed.
Hope your article is worth it, ya rotten bastard!
Thought you could liquor up an old man and trick him out of his secrets?
I told you a country boy could hold his booze!
Have a nice walk home!
I dashed out after the truck but quickly saw the effort was futile.
The old man whipped the truck around and sped down the dirt track.
Like Billy in his story, I never saw the old man again.
Cursing and spitting, I stormed into the cabin.
Furiously I resigned myself to having to spend the night in that dank old place.
In the dim, flickering lamplight I observed my surroundings.
I quickly gave up on the enterprise and turned back to the chimney.
when I heard the thumping sound again.
And realized it wasnt coming from the door.
It was coming from the window to my right.
The one eight feet off the ground.
Unable to control myself, I turned and walked toward the source of that sound.
Thats when I saw the thing for myself.
Thats when I saw my firstBreckenridge Gremlin.
I realized at that moment, I never truly believed in the thing, in anything supernatural.
Some part of me just liked to pretend to believe in such things.
Bigfoot, Nessie, Ghosts.
Naively, I thought the possibility of such things existence was what kept the world feeling magical and mysterious.
It made me happy.
The thing I saw in that window, the reality of it, did not make me happy.
It made me sick to my stomach.
Its eyes, vaguely luminous, were large and bulbous, though not featureless.
They consisted of concentric rings of red, black, and gold, which narrowed and widened constantly.
Its gaze was fixed on me, and I found it difficult to pull my own gaze away.
I forced myself to.
A ragged gash that seemed to serve as the things mouth worked and writhed.
I realized it was muttering something I could just hear but not understand.
My stomach turned and twisted.
With a gnarled and impossibly long finger, it reached out and tapped the window.
Tap, tap, tap.
I made a small strangled sound and began to stumble backward.
Nictitating membranes blinked rapidly across the things eyes and it began to make a strange chuffing sound.
Was it laughing?!
I began screaming then, and fell to my knees.
Gathering my will, I forced my gaze toward the window.
I allowed myself a sigh of relief.
I saw nothing there.
But I had to be sure.
Slowly, deliberately, I rose to my feet.
It was too dark outside, even in the moonlight, to look for them out the window.
I would have to go outside to be sure.
I thought of Billy, running out the door to his doom, and gasped.
I realized then that I could hear them.
I strained to listen and my traitorous hand began to grip the knob almost without me realizing it.
Those things, those Outside People, were gathered out there, encircling the cabin.
The sheer number of them was staggering.
I could see them chanting and swaying slightly on their four spindly limbs.
One of them was so immense that its limbs looked like the trunks of withered, fleshy trees.
So why were they content to wait?
I began to feel panic tear at my mind yet again.
I realized I could think much better outside, under the stars.
I was almost to my feet again when I caught myself and forced myself to sit back down.
The influence those damned things had on me was so strong!
The only conclusion I could come to was that the things needed me to come outside.
They either could not or would not come in here.
It was all I could do to resist them.
My only hope was that they would be gone with the morning light, still hours away.
I could almost feel an invisible force, like a tether, trying to pull me up and outside.
Only by filling my head with thoughts could I hope to resist.
I remembered my notebook, which I still kept with me despite my reliance on audio recording.
Unable to think of anything else, I decided I would write out this entire story.
I would leave nothing out and hope I could keep it going until morning.
Now Im sunk, I think.
Ive told everything there is to tell, and Im so tired.
The sun is still down and the Outside People are still waiting for me.
I only have to keep resisting.
I think I could think of more to write if I were outside…
