The terror within

Chapter One

It had been another long night of tossing, turning and hoping for sleep, when the phone started ringing.
Harry wasn't exactly in the mood to get it so he let the answering machine pick it up.
'Hi you know the drill', droned the machine as it played his recorded message for the umpteeenth millionth time.
'I've really gotta change that bloody message', Harry grunted to him self as he got up to make his way to the bathroom.
'Harry?..... Harry are you there? Come on Harry if your there pick up this is important!'
That was Harrys' ex-wife Joan they hadn't exactly been on speaking terms since they decided for divorce nine months ago and this had been only the second time she had rung.
"What the bloody hell could be sooo damn important at three a.m. in the morning? Harry whinged to himself, amongst his own thoughts while flushing the loo. He let her hang for a few more seconds then decided he had better talk to her since he hadn't the first time she had rung, no matter what the time was. As he was about to pick up she said,
'Well if you decide to ring me back you know where i am, its about work...'
BEEP.BEEEP.BEEEEEP. Screeched the quickly irritating sound of the dead phone.
"What the bloody hell on earth would work be contacting me during my holidays for?' Thought Harry as he got back into bed and tried to slowly let himself fall back to sleep, except he knew it wasn't really a holiday more of a forced type of leave.... of the extended type........




'AAAAAAAAAARRGGHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!' yelled Harry as he woke from a deep sleep, he reached for the glass on his bed side table and took in a mouthful.
"What the hell was that?" He pondered as he went back through the threads of his already fading dream. The last thing he could legitimatly remember was some kind of golden orb hovering over another object and then joining it, maybe, or just appearing to join it, for some reason he had the feeling of deja vu; the feeling of a strange familiarality, but what had it been that had scared him?
Not wanting to think to heavily into his dream, he got up and decided to ring his old supervisor Tony.
Tony was the person Harry had felt the most blame towards (apart from his wife who he was still going to great legnths to understand even though he knew he probably never would) for his break up, then eventual divorce from his wife. Tony had quite simply worked Harry into the ground, not that Harry had minded at all, he loved his work , how could he say no? That had been before his superiors had transferred him to a different department, they had decided his expertise could be more beneficial in a relatively new area of research. The hunting down and examination of so-called "electro-magnetic hot spots" and trying to find out if there was any possibility of harnessing this electro-magnetism as a viable energy resource. It was only then when he started getting closer to some of these hot spots that the black- outs had started.
One minute he would be working quite happily then he would wake up miles away from where he had been and it would have been only a matter of seconds since he'd last checked his watch, the main problem with this was how had he got to where he was?, And why were all the clocks in the area hours and hours different? After the sixth or seventh time it had happened Harry reported it and was subsequencially sent to a psychiatrist for an examination and had then been put on extended leave following the report handed down to his superiors ( Tony mainly, had always held something against Harry but he could never quite figure out what). He hadnt told his doctor his strange dreams had started around the same time that he'd began to work with magnetic fields, though he thought it had something to do with it, no he definantly knew it had been involved with it he just didnt know how.



'Whoa..... did you see that one?. said the nineteen year old night skywatcher to his friend, 'thats the brightest one yet!!'
Billy and a couple of his friends had been coming to this particular area of Queensland for the past few years to go camping, relax have a few drinks without the constant watch of there parents.
This had always been great, well it still was except for now it was more exciting in a different way since the lights had started appearing a few months ago.
Somehow it had become like a drug, at first they had really been interested in the phenomenom, then quickly they had found they couldnt wait to get up to "isa" as they called it. At first they had camped a kilometre away and had ventured down a sandy slope to a good vantage poiint using binoculars to view the lights, then the third time they were there Selina had suggested that they camp a bit closer and sure enough the next time they did.
All the time the lights never moved. Until eventually it was a general consensus between the three of them that they camp practically next to the lights so they could find out first hand what was going on.
The lights had steadily been appearing for longer and longer, but these were no ordinary u.f.o. type lights like you see in the movies, but instead the lights were stationary and fluctuated from an intense blue through to an even more intense red hue then back again. This is the thing Billy and his friends just could not get over.
'Sure is. I reckon its gotta be one of those government experiments we keep hearing about,' replied Billys' best mate Josef.
'Oh come on everybody in Australia knows that kinda stuff only happens in America or on the x-files' retorted Selina, 'you've just seen tooo many movies about crap like this thats all.'
Selina was one of those girls everybody had in their group of friends, you know the one, thinks they know everything very bitchy and hell always the best looking, the trouble is everybody wanted her and she wanted no one, because they simply weren't good enough.
'Yeah whatever then.... what is it smart arse?' snorted Josef ( who just happened to have a really big crush on Selina, but just couldnt find it in himself to be nice to her).
'I dont know.... i really just dont know...'



'Tony...'
'yeah who's this?'
'it's me Harry jeese has it been that long that you dont remember my voice?'
'No. Its just i hadn't expected to hear from you so soon thats all,' lied Tony, in reality Tony had been waiting desperately by the phone for 12 hrs hoping Harry would ring back.
'Yeah well i thought you might have been assigning me back to work and ive been kind of anxious to get back into.... so with a phone call that early in the morning i thought i should get back to you'
'Listen Harry lets cut the crap ok? Three more EHMS (short for electro magnetic hot spots and pronounced emz) have popped up and we really need your help on these , they're about four times as strong as the first few we found last year'
'Shit.... where did they pop up this time?' enquired Harry.
'well two have popped up in Antarctica, one outside our own special operations way stations, and the other in Frances' part of the Antarctic'
'Damn what kind of effect is it having on the environment down there?'
'Not much, well not much yet anyway,,, Harry the third one turned up not far from the secret communications installation in Australia.. the Americans are really worried this time...........' long pause then,' Harry are you still there?'
'Yeah sorry Tony just thinking is all'
'Harry ..... we want to send you down to the Antarctic right away, we're willing to write a full letter of apology and give you everything you need....'
'i dont know...'
'oh shit come on man that was the sales pitch okay? thats as good as it gets, look we all know that you are the best man for the job, no one else has your "abilities", you've got two days to think about it, and then itll be prep time, see ya.'
For the following few minutes Harry just listened to the beep of the phone not knowing what to think... sure he wanted to go back to work, but doing this shit again he just didnt know....


'Selinaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! get away from it!!!!!!!' screamed Billy.
'Fuck she's gone man where the fuck did she go for christ sakes?' said Josef in a state of shock.
' no she just disappeared with that fu-fucken light, like man she-she's gone' cried Billy, 'where the fuck did she go?'
'Man fuck me people dont just disappear into thin air.....'
'Jesus you dont fucken know that you stupid son of a bitch, but thats whats fucken happened, i mean you saw it with your own two eyes didnt you?' a long pause then, 'well didnt you?'



Seven years old Harry had been when he was about to score a try in a rugby union game he had been playing with friends,
instead of scoring the try he ended up going over the edge of his lawn and falling a good two metres before hitting the concrete driveway, landing heavily on his head.
The first thing he remembered was waking up and hearing a strange buzzing sound, not from outside of his head but from inside.
The doctors hadnt believed him at first but after an hour of screaming to make it stop they had finally decided to give him something to help him sleep, during that sleep Harry remembered dreaming of a light breaking through a brick wall slowly smashing every brick till they were merely dust.
When he awoke the next time the buzzing was still there but this time it didnt seem to bother him so he told the doctors that it had gone and as he would later find out, it was definantly not gone at all.



Harry never rang Tony back, never in his life had he needed to because they both knew that the instant Tony had fueled the fire Harry was back in no doubt about it, in fact the only time Harry had actually thought about it was at the local pub up the road, even though hed only had a moment or two to think about it before one of the locals came up to him and asked him for a friendly game of pool.
Before he knew it he'd made three new friends, the guy he d partnered with John, the older fellow that had requested the game Andrew and his pool partner Ron.
They had played pool till had at least 3 am in the morning when the bar had closed and they had promptly been kicked out, not without the usual stalls begging for another drink and the usual obsenities of course, but they had all exchanged numbers with Harry and gone there seperate ways.
Instead of actually thinking about it Harry had merely packed his bags for the antarctic knowing he didnt quite have the right clothes, but making no attempt to go and buy any knowing full well that the appropriate clothes would be supplied as per all the past trips he'd been sent on.
Harry didnt just pack for cooler weather either, why? , he didnt really know but he had a strange feeling that he may just need some warmer clothes too..... Maybe.



The night before he was due to leave Harry was reading one of his usual murder mystery novelsthat he loved so much and must of dozed offinto a deep sleep wen the prickling of one of the dreams he used to have reappeared, the one in a which a giant hand covers his face in golden light.
Harry didnt remember this when he awoke 3 hours later to a banging on the door, it was 2 am Harry got up and went to go towards the door and hesitated, what had i been dreamiong he thought to himself, apprehensively he peake out the window....
Tony had sent his men in black esque associates to pick him up great Tony must have meant early i wonder whats going on?

CHAPTER 2

The police arrived three hours later in one of those late model fords that all the rev heads could only dream of and tell there mates that one day, yes one day, they were gonna own that particular model, knowing for sure that probably they would never own one of those ones, but more likely they would own an earlier model that wouldn't make the cut and was not road worthy anyway.
The police car swerved to the side of the two tents and stopped with a spraying of dust that made Billy and Josef cough and choke for a good minute or so.
Josef had remembered to bring his sony psp with him, so moments after Selina had disapeared and he d gained some control he rang the cops who were miles and miles away, he d explained the story as best as he d been able to but for some reason the details had started to fade and had faded fast.
By the time the police had arrived Billy and Josef were just standing there like ghosts, they had all there normal reactions it seemed to light and the dust but they just weren't "there".
The police had responded to the call as fast as they could, but at first they had thought it was just a practical joke of which they were bound to get from time to time, next they thought as they still did that these kids had taken some bad drugs (more likely they had said on the way than the story they d been given but not true as they would later find out).
Constable Brown had been the first one out of the patrol car and when he saw the boys just standing there coughing in the dusty rays of light coming from the headlights of the patrol car, but making no other response to the car, the officers or anything else, he got a cold chill the kind that makes the hair on the nape of your neck stand up so stiff you have to turn around and check that there is nothing really scary behind you, and that is exactly what he did, so fast in fact he almost knocked the back door of the patrol car into the the sargeants legs. Luckily for Sargeant Smith he was quick enough to see his constable was spooked and stopped the door in its tracks before it could cause any damage.
'Damn that was close' he said, with a slight taste of shock rising to the back of his throat, when he looked over to the boys and saw the expressions on there faces he said straight away to the constable,
'Get in the car and radio for a chopper these boys need help ...now!!!'
'John..!' he screamed at his partner of ten years who was also a sargeant, 'get that bottle of water out of the boot these boys look like they need it!!'
John and his partner David had seen plenty of of bad shit before but this was taking the cake so far, and as he was grabbing the water out of the boot he smelt a strange burning in the air, not the normal kind of burning you would smell from a brush fire or a cigarette or even plastic but a strange metallic burning, looking up he saw the boys collapsing and he quickly slammed the boot and ran over with the water.
At exactly the same moment Constable Brown slammed his door and ran over.
Stumbling through his words he finally said,
'The chopper wont be here for another hour sir they said to let a flare off in forty minutes then one every five minutes after that till they land.'
'FUCK!' Sargeant Smith cursed, 'we'll just have to take them to old Doc Willoughbys, we can be there in fifteen minutes, so we'll radio back for the chopper to land there, now... lets get these boys into the back, i'll drive this time Constable it looks like every minute might count.'





Harry woke up to the feeling of being thrown around, slowly opening his eyes he realised he really was being thrown around, he was on the plane to the Antarctic, and it was experiencing extreme turbulance.
When he looked around he saw no one. Everyone had left there seats. "Arent you supposed to stay seated when its this bad?" he thought to himself.
As if in answer to his own thoughts a low hum came through the speakers followed by a voice,
'This is your captain speaking apparently there is a storm up ahead of the likes they havent seen before in this area and it appears we may have to turn around a little and land in Australia or possibly New Zealand. I have been trying to contact the outpost where we are meant to land but no luck yet, would everyone aheum i mean would all three of my passengers please remain seated.'
Tony had sent two others with Harry this time to keep an eye on him, one of them he had already nick named in his head godzilla for the simple fact he was a huge ugly monster, the other Jim had seemed quite alright, at that moment of thought they both walked in and promptly sat down on either side of him.



Doctor Harold Willoughby had been a doctor for almost fifty years and thought he d seen alot of strange cases in his time especially since he decided to move back to his town of birth to look after his aging parents. That had been thirty years ago, his parents were now long since passed and it had been an extremely hard time for the Doc and his wife.
Sarah, his wife had experienced it the worst because she had to deal with the way Harold changed after his father had passed and then his mother a year later, it was as though his mum had just given up after her husband died and it had been one of the most painful things to watch as she had pretty much just withered up in front of both of their eyes. Sarah had been diagnosed with cancer seven years later, it had progressed from her ovaries through her inner organs before it was even detected. Eventually it was discovered by Harold and to this day four years later he could still not forgive himself for missing it time and time again during routine check-ups. Harold had drifted into near isolation after his parents had passed, and this Harold now believed had killed his wife.
Lying wide awake at 4am he had been thinking about the rise of in mutations in the local farming industries not just the cattle and sheep but practically everything that could grow in the area when he heard a car skid into his driveway that was almost a kilometre away. "Damn" he thought to himself, "i forgot to leave the cb on for emergencies!" Not that there had been any emergencies in the last two years anyway.
Quickly dressing he took a closer look out the window and saw it was a police car grinding to a halt outside his clinic door.

After what seemed like an eternity Harry was informed that the plane would be landingin Sydney and would refuel then move on to the Antarctic when the storm was over, that was still 4 hours away so Harry decided he would have a nap, as he drifted off he remembered waking up at home when he was seven just after his accident and seeing three figures standing at the foot of his bed stretching all the way to the ceiling, oddly enough thay had all beared a strange resemblance to Jesus and were made up completeley of white light, They had all extended there right hands and said as one voice all will be fine then his mother had walked in and they had disapeared instantly.


Landing in Sydney was uneventful and Harry was completely wiped out by the time they got to the hotel. When Harry woke up later that night he'd had a strnge sense of de ja vu and the phone was ringing, he lent over and answered the phone.
'morning... tony'
'Harry... how dju know it was me?'
'Who else would be trying to get hold of me in the middle of the night?'
'Oh shit sorry Harry i completely forgot about the time difference.. its the middle of the day here...'
'We've decided we want you to go check out the area up near Mt. Isa where we found out that the communications base station was having similar ehms fluctuations as some of the areas we'd previously investigated..'
'So ill be heading straight up there then hey?'
'thats pretty much it, youll be picked up in another day or so and flown uo there by some of the locals'
'okay then ill to ya soon, bye'
Harry sat there for a while on the edge of his bed, he knew something was goin on up there, it was like the first time he'd thought of it when he was having visions when he was eight there was something really powerful up there and he wanted to get up there as fast as he could.


When Selina came to she remembered nothing she looked around and thought she must be dreaming, in every direction around her was a transperant purple sticky filmlike substance. The closer she moved towards it the more inviting it was to go closer and then closer still till eventually touching it. Selina let out a gasp and then bent over vomiting repeatedly until she passed out just before passing out she thought,
'this is the most horrible dream ive ever had.'



The Doc jumped up turning the light on as he ran towards the door to see what kind of assistance the sargeant needed. Throwing open the door and rushing out,
'Barry! What the hell is going on?'
'We got 2 in the patrol car willoughby' said the sargeant as he ran around to the back door,
'and they arent to good . when we found them they were totally non-responsive visually or mentally the one with the dark hair collapsed but the other just seems to be dead but alive...'
'Get them into the main room and call the Flying Doctors..’ willoughby said as he ran over to help the constable grab the first boy out of the patrol car.
'i already have .. they said that they'd be at least an hour away and that was about 15 minutes ago,’ replied the sargeant.
While carrying the first boy inside the doc noticed that the boy was unusually limp like the life had been ripped straight out of him they got him inside and placed him on the observation bed, the constable returned outside to help the sargeant bring in the other boy and the doc set about his work.
'Strange... ' the doc whispered to himself, he had already checked all of the boys vitals and everything appeared to be normal except that there were no reactions or any responses to pinching or any attempt to wake him.
He turned to get his pen light out of the draw to check for eye reaction when he looked in the mirror. standing next to the boy was a figure stretched up to the ceiling wearing a robe and holding one hand over the boys head, he could see the figures lips moving and oddly enough he would only realise later that he could see straight through him, the figure was closely resembled to Jesus but he wasn't white more a grey/black.
As the doc was about to turn and see who the hell this 9ft tall figure actuatly was, he turned his head and looked deep into the docs eyes, and he felt the greatest terror he had ever felt in his life, it was so bad he felt his eyes water. his skin creep, shivers up his spine and then the most frightful pain he'd ever felt as the figure pointed straight at his heart he then realised he was having a heart attack
’DOC !!!!!!!! Screamed the constable as he came in with the sargeant carrying the other boy. Quickly placing the boy on the other observation bed the constable ran over and immedially tried to revive the doc. pumpmg his chest and feeling his pulse, he swapped with the more experienced sargeant when it didn't work and within 15 seconds the doc was breathing again but not conscious.
Just as they were about to take a breather they heard a helicopter in the distance with half a sigh of relief they turned the helipad lights on and quickly ran outside.
When the chopper finally landed the medics took over and the two police officers explained in as much detail as they knew, what had happened. They watched the medics load the three still forms on the chopper. Then the sergeant tumed and said to his constable,
' lets lock this place up check in with the station so they know exactly whats going on then i think wed better get back out to those boys camp-site and see what we can find.'
Thinking to himself the sergent realised he'd seen three tents out there tonite and he knew purely by instinct tbat this was likely to be a very special case.