A steady stream of cars drove out to Borenore. I sped by them, using the oncoming traffic lane. Not far past the town everyone turned off to a dirt road. Cars parked in an empty paddock to the side of an old farm house. Beyond the paddock were trees and beyond them I could see another empty field as I pushed through the crowd of onlookers. Most of the people were safely hidden in the shadows; some were brave enough to venture into the knee high grass of the second paddock. Everyone looked toward the sky. I checked my watch; it was a little after ten-o-five.
From the edge of the shadows and I looked up. Two bright lights moved slowly across the clouded night. Four smaller lights buzzed around more quickly. Were these the lights of some type of mind ray or were they from something much more alien? I stood near a man and a woman. The woman giggled lightly. Holding hands, they walked, hesitantly, into the empty field of grass.
The couple reached the middle of the paddock, the light from the clouds reflected back down to them. They continued holding hands and walked a little further. I gasped along with the rest of the crowd, the man and woman disappeared, completely.
I ran into the field, excited. This was why I was here, this was what I had hoped to find, something completely unnatural with no logical explanation.
I got to the spot where the couple had vanished; there was nothing unusual about it. I took one step forward and everything changed. It was no longer night. The field took on a burning glow, like at the end of a rainy day when the western horizon has cleared. It was hot. The grass of the field had been soft and fresh, now it was dry and brown, ready for fire. A crowd of people, perhaps 50 or more, stood in the middle of the paddock, surrounding a strange piece of machinery - the mind ray? Sitting on top of the strange mechanical thing was an ancient woman; she wrote in a book that was open on her lap. Two guards stood to either side of the machinery. They were strange to look at; half man, half woman. I took a step toward them and they disappeared. The paddock was again dark. The grass was fresh. The people, the machinery and the old woman were gone. For a moment longer the lights continued to flash across the sky. I stood silently watching, then they were extinguished.
I saw shadows moving near the bushland on the other side of the field. I ran to them. From a distance I saw the figure of a person stand-up and run to the trees. I followed.
I became aware of several more people running in front of me, away from me. I ran faster and got closer to one of them. I jumped forward and knocked them to the ground. It was a young man, average and ordinary. He pushed me off and tried to run away but I held onto his foot. He tried to kick me but only succeeded in helping me bring him to the ground again. He twisted and landed on his back with a thud. I scrambled on top of him and pinned him down.
“Who are you?” I demanded.
He didn’t answer.
I rolled him onto his front and twisted his arm up behind his back. “Who are you!?” He still didn’t answer. Then someone jumped on me from behind. I landed face first between the shoulder-blades of my prisoner, dazed for a moment.
When my senses returned I was on my back, six men stood in a circle looking down at me. One of them shone a bright light into my eyes. “What do we do with her now?” one of them asked nervously.
“I don’t know her,” said another with a gruff voice. “Do you know her?”
It was agreed that none of them knew me.
“So what do we do?” asked the gruff voice again.
“Duno. Kill her?” I wasn’t going to have any truck with that nonsense.
“Here’s what you are going to do,” I said. “You are going to stand there and let me beat the living daylights out of each and every one of you, then you are all going to roll around in agony for a while so I’ve got time to tie you up. Then you are going to wait here while I get the police and, finally, you are going to listen very carefully when they ask what you were doing here tonight."
And that’s exactly what they did.
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