Haggopian and Other Stories

And that was when I fought back against my own feelings of almost hypnotic lethargy to send one of our Military number to wake the technician…

• • •

Jason, his eyes wide open, staring; his mouth agape; his voice little more than a whisper: “I can hear them singing. The same song or hymn I heard in my dream. It’s dark, yet somehow joyful…a strange dark joy.”

James, excitedly, but at the same time oddly dull or vacant of volume: “Then rejoice in the contact! Out there in the stars, they have heard us!”

Jason: “In the stars, or between the spaces we know? Is the lens a telepathic transmitter, or is it in fact a true Gateway? What if They…what if they’re extra-dimensional?”

James, a bubble of foam forming at the corner of his mouth: “How far away is an extra-dimension? ‘Beyond’ the universe?”

Jason, twitching, his knuckles turning white on the table’s rim: “But what…what if…what if it’s parallel?”

James, beginning to shudder violently: “I hear the singing, too! And although it’s alien, I believe there are parts that I recognise or at least understand.”

Jason, his body jerking, threatening to topple his chair: “Their thoughts are merging with ours; either that or they are translating them for us, making them recognisable. And the lens…it is a Gateway. And they’re using it! They’re coming!”

James, dead white, foaming at the mouth, his eyes bulging, entire body vibrating: “I think…I think we should stop now. I think we should…think we have to withdraw. I sense chaos. And the lens: it’s glowing, blazing, opening! Ah! Ahhh! Ahhhh!”

• • •

NOTE: It is difficult to describe what we saw happening on our screens from this point on. But I shall try.

The lens in its globe was shimmering, emitting lances and arcs of bright white light that came through the glass to dart around the cell like living things, like snakes of fire. These dozen or so streamers or coruscations were certainly sentient; they appeared to be searching, or perhaps surveying, the immediate vicinity, but in something less than five or six seconds they converged into two main beams that struck unerringly home at the heads of our subjects. It happened that fast, literally with lightning speed, and “confused” as we four observers were (our technician and the Military man I had sent to awaken him were only now returning) there was nothing we could do to stop it. And on our screens—

—The pair appeared to be melting! Their faces were showing extraordinary agony; they glowed until their eyes and gaping mouths were black sockets in bright, luminous silhouettes; their shaking seemed to be tearing them apart, so that glowing bits were drifting from them like fiery snowflakes…and yet they were singing!

Over and above a high-pitched, alien keening—a blast of noise I can only describe as a battle of unknown elements, the sound of waves breaking on some cosmic shore—came the words of that song driven into their shattered minds and out through their mouths, that “hymn” translated from its original form by who or whatever they had contacted. And in my own mind I heard or sensed something of that original form—that hideous cacophony that human vocal chords could never hope to duplicate—and I knew its relevance!

“Stop it!” I cried then, to anyone who was listening—if anyone was listening. “Shut the thing down!”

My companions were reeling—shocked, numbed, made useless, by what they, too, were receiving from the lens, that now fully open portal. But as for the physical intruders, those shafts of alien light or sentient fire: they were only the vanguard. For what was coming through now was more properly the stuff of our most terrifying nightmares.

They moved too quickly, too strangely, to be viewed in any kind of clear detail. But in colour they were a pulsing yellow-veined or marbled purple and black, and in shape reminiscent of spiders, scorpions, octopi or dragons…all these things from moment to moment, and others utterly indescribable. Yet I knew that even these were only a squad of advance troops.

James and Jason: they were beginning to slump into themselves, like slowly collapsing columns or candles of intense white light; but even so, quite beyond pain as we understand it, they continued to sing their joyful song.

“Shut the damn thing down!” I yelled again, this time right in the ear of our technician, who was looking at his instrument panel as if he had never seen it in his life before! His confusion was apparent from his gaping mouth and bulging, stupefied eyes. While in the cell a nightmarish metamorphosis was taking place.