2021 (17 page)

‘STUART! JOAN! I NEED YOU TO COME AND TAKE A LOOK AT
THIS
!’

The pair both rushed to the front of the airship and then
they both gazed out into the distance.

‘But I can’t see anything’ puzzled Stuart.

‘Hell, Stuart, what’s wrong with your
damn eyes?’ laughed Jack ‘here! Take my binoculars’ he suggested.

Stuart then raise
d the binoculars up and studied out into the distance again.

‘Whereabouts am I supposed to be looking?’ he queried.

‘Just on
the horizon of course’ replied Jack as he continued to steer the airship.

‘But what exactly is
that
?’ Stuart now queried ‘why it’s massive!’

‘But that can’t be a building can it?’ puzzled Joan.

‘Let’s get back to peddling
so we can get a closer look’ suggested Stuart excitedly ‘Jack can you give us a shout when we’re able to see it better?’

‘Will do
!’ replied Jack.

‘No, Joan and I will do the peddling’ smile
d Jenny ‘with you doing it, Dad we’ll never even get there.’

‘Oi,
Cheeky!’ smiled her dad.

Taking the
ir hint that he was a bit slow, Stuart then returned to Jack instead.

‘I guess I’ve been relegated to the control room’ he smiled.

‘Quite right too’ laughed Jack.

Some ten minutes later, Stuart shouted out
again.

‘
HEY, YOU TWO, COME AND HAVE A LOOK AT
THIS
!’

Both Joan and Jenny stopped peddling and
then ran to join Jack and Stuart looking out from the front of the airship’s cabin.

‘My God!’ uttered Joan
in shock ‘just what the hell is that thing?’

‘Do you want me to do some filming, Dad?’ asked Jenny
immediately.

‘Yes please, Jenny
, definitely!’ he replied unable to even take his eyes away.

‘What on earth is that, Joan, I’ve never seen anything quite like it?’ questioned Stuart.

‘It’s like some massive, black building of some sort, but it can’t be surely, because it goes on too long’ stated Jack looking as shocked as anyone.

‘It appears to be made of some kind of almost glass like material
, but it can’t be, as it has no visible joins or divisions’ observed Stuart.

‘Can I see through the binoculars?’ asked Joan.

‘Yes, certainly’ replied Stuart, immediately passing them to her.

‘You’re right,
Stuart, but I don’t understand how constructing something this big is even possible?’ she queried.

Then she turned to Jack.

‘Jack
, is it possible to estimate the size or shape of this thing as flying up here it’s hard to accurately judge how truly big anything is from up here?’

‘I don’t know, hang on’
he then told her as he then grabbed up some crude devices.

‘My God!’ he then uttered in shock.

‘What’s up?’ Joan asked.

‘Well I make this thing
more than a mile across by my rough estimations and possibly either circular in shape or an oval’ he replied.

‘But it can’t be?
I know of no technology today that could explain any roof with that kind of span, especially one with no visible joins or divisions in it’ puzzled Stuart.

‘I don’t know, inside it could be supported by numerous columns
for all we know’ commented Joan.

‘Even so, how come we don’
t know anything about this giant structure?’ puzzled Stuart.

‘Could
it be a secret government thing?’ pondered Jack as they now travelled right over the top of it.

‘But how
could anyone keep something this massive a secret? I mean, look at the size of it’ pointed Stuart ‘it seems to go on forever!’

‘You made a good point about the materia
l, Stuart’ commented Joan ‘I can’t see a single ripple, join, division, reflection, anything at all in fact in that roof, despite this thing’s huge size.’

Jack himself borrowed his own binoculars back
now.

‘The material this
thing is made of, it reminds me of black tar, the type they repair a joint in the road with or when they use an expanding joint in a bridge’ he commented as he passed the binoculars back to Stuart.

‘Yes
, you’re right’ Stuart agreed.

‘I think I should add some commentary to Jenny’s filming’ nodded Joan as she ran back to join her.

‘Good idea’ agreed Stuart ‘describe what we’re seeing.’

Joan then quickly ran back to join Jenny up higher on the filming platform.

‘I’m going to add some commentary to go with your filming’ explained Joan.

Then
connecting a hand held microphone she began.

‘We are around forty two minutes into our journey since the power went off. We are also unable
to explain why our battery torches no longer work or more strangely why we cannot light any flame. We have encountered no problems with gas in the atmosphere and no gas alarms have sounded’ explained Joan as she continued;

‘
We are now passing over what appears to be a shiny black oval or circular building or plateau, although, close inspection through binoculars suggests it to be actually too perfect to be a plateau. It is a building of quite colossal proportions. By our calculations it is at least one mile wide and almost the same deep. Upon approaching this structure we could see no windows or doors visible to its front, side or roof. Interestingly, there seem to be no visible joins or divisions anywhere within the building’s surfaces either. There are no lights visible and nor is there any sign of life around it.’

With that Joan signed off.

‘STUART! WE NEED TO FIND THE END OF THIS THING BEFORE WE RUN OUT OF TIME!’ she shouted ‘ALSO I’M THINKING ABOUT US HAVING ENOUGH LIGHT LEFT TO EVEN CONTINUE FILMING ANYTHING
AS WELL!’ she added.

‘We also need to keep an eye on the amount of film
we have left’ commented Jenny ‘they’ve only supplied one spool of film.’

‘Good point’ nodded Joan ‘maybe we should leave it at that
, just for now’ she smiled.

‘GOOD IDEA, JOAN’ nodded Stuart as he
raced to get on one of the cycles again.

‘
No, I’ll do it’ smiled Jenny, but her dad just shook his head.

‘No, you stay
on the camera, Jenny, in case we come across something else we need to film’ he suggested, so reluctantly Jenny just returned to stay with the camera again.

A while later
, they suddenly heard Jack shout out again.

‘I CAN SEE SOMETHING MOVING
UP AHEAD!’

Joan and Stuart immediately stopped peddling and ran to the front of the airship
as quickly as they could.

‘GET READY TO START FILMING AGAIN, JENNY!’ he
r dad shouted up to her.

‘OK
, JENNY, WE’RE ALMOST AT THE END OF THE BUILDING, START FILMING AGAIN WILL YOU PLEASE!’

‘WIL
L DO, DAD!’ Jenny shouted back.

As the airship finally glided over the end of the giant building all their jaws
suddenly dropped to the floor in shock.

‘Heck, Stuart
’ uttered Jack ‘just exactly what am I even looking at?’

Pouring out of the huge black building seemed to be thousands
upon thousands of black creatures of some kind.

‘Oh my God, Stuart, what the hell are they?’ uttered Joan as she put her hand to her mouth in horror.

‘They’re almost like some kind of insect, locust like’ commented Stuart as he just stared down at them
, hardly believing his own eyes.

Joan just shook her head.

‘But I’m a bit confused now
, being up here for so long, exactly how big are these things?’ she queried ‘are they small or large?’ she puzzled ‘because I’m struggling to make it out now?’

‘But that’s impossible surely?
’ uttered Stuart in shock ‘but they look
our
size?’ he queried as he turned around with a look of disbelief on his face.

‘No,
they’re even bigger I reckon’ replied Jack as he just shook his head as he looked down again after looking through a piece of equipment he had brought with him. ‘I always bring this with me, as it’s often hard to estimate the sheer scale of things from up here, but there’s never any mistake using this simply piece of kit’ nodded Jack.

‘But you
must
have made a mistake, Jack, surely?’ puzzled Stuart.

‘But Stu
art, look over the horizon, my God! There are
millions
of these things!’ now uttered Joan in shock.

Suddenly th
ough, their attention was drawn back to Jenny. From her vantage point where the camera was mounted up much higher, she could now see what they all clearly couldn’t.

‘OH, DAD! JESUS CHRIST, DAD, I JUST CAN’T WATCH THIS, I
JUST
CAN’T
!’ she uttered as she just began to cry as she continued to film away.

‘IT’S ALL RIGHT, JENNY,
THEY’RE JUST SOME KIND OF INSECT THAT’S ALL!’ shouted her dad.

‘IT’S NOT THAT, DAD’ she cried ‘OH, I JUST CAN’T WATCH THIS ANYMORE
, IT’S JUST HORRIFIC!’ she shouted down to them as he now ran to be by her side.

‘ARE YOU STILL FILMING, JENNY? ARE YOU USING THE ZOOM?’ s
houted Jack as he stared down after grabbing up his binoculars to see just what was upsetting her so much.

‘YES, I’M STILL
FILMING AND I’M USING THE ZOOM’ Jenny just about managed to shout back.

‘It’s all right, Jenny, I’ll take over now’ her dad told h
er as he took over the operation of the camera and began to focus in.

‘You
need to keep it very still, Dad and use the zoom lever here’ she told him as she kept the camera’s winding mechanism moving for him.

What Stuart now saw
through the camera’s eye piece though, it suddenly hit him in the pit of his stomach like a hard punch and it truly horrified him!

The larger than
man sized creatures were now passing living humans along from one to another until one of the creatures would suddenly bite the neck of their victim and then completely devour them!

‘Oh my God!’ ut
tered Stuart as he trembled in terror as he just had to look away!

He now knew what had shocked Jenny so much. He could barely force himself to watch anymore now, but he knew he would have to film for longer to allow sufficient scientific study of these creatures later on back at the Pentagon. So he tried his best to keep on filming, but his hands were increasingly shaking too much.

Soon
though, he had to break away from the camera’s platform as he quickly ran down and was physically sick over the side!

‘JACK! WE’VE GOT TO GET OUT OF HERE!
NOW
!’ he screamed.

‘WHAT IS IT?’ Jack shouted back ‘ALL I CAN SEE ARE THE
SE WEIRD CREATURES?’

Stuart’s throat had dried so much he couldn’t even answer him at first.

‘THEY’RE KILLING HU
MANS, JACK!’ he finally screamed back as he now held Jenny in his arms.

‘But that ca
n’t be right, can it?’ puzzled Jack in alarm as he looked over towards Joan.

Joan quickly took up the binoculars again
, until suddenly she too was forced to look away.

‘Oh my God
!’ she then uttered in alarm as she immediately stared at him.

‘Jack he’s only right, t
hey’re killing
people
down there’ she uttered in shock.

Stuart meanwhile
, had run back to see Jack.

‘Jack we’ve got enough film, we’ve got to get out of here
,
now
!’ he told him urgently.

‘THEN OUR JOB’S DONE!’ shouted Jack as he
ran back to the controls and started turning the giant airship around.

Just then though, they all heard Jenny scream
out again.

‘DAD!
THEY’RE ALL TRYING TO GET US!’

‘DON
’T BE SILLY, JENNY, THEY’RE WAY DOWN THERE WE’RE ALL COMPLETELY SAFE UP HERE’ her dad shouted back.

‘
YOU THINK, DAD?
LOOK
! THEY’RE ALL NOW JUMPING UP AT US!’ Jenny screamed again.

Stuart now ran to look down over the side.

‘Christ, she’s
only right, Joan, look at them all!’ uttered Stuart in alarm.

‘But they can’t possibly reach us high up
here surely? Can they?’ questioned Joan, now looking quite alarmed herself.

Just as
she said the words though, they suddenly all felt a jolt and the airship immediately listed slightly to one side!

‘What the hell was
that
?’ questioned Jack.

‘You leave it to us, Jack’ suggested Stuart ‘you just get back to the control room and concentrate on turning this thing around.’

‘Will do
!’ nodded Jack as he immediately ran back up to man the controls again.

Stuart, Joan and Jenny now all ran a
round looking down over the side.

Then Joan screamed out!

‘AGGGGGHHHHH! IT’S ONE OF THE CREATURES!’ she screamed in panic ‘IT’S CLIMBING UP ONE OF THE MOORING ROPES!’

‘CHRIST,
IF MORE OF THEM DO THE SAME, THEY’LL DRAG US DOWN THERE. BRING UP THE MOORING ROPES QUICKLY! AND CUT THAT ONE FREE!’ shouted Jack in alarm.