The Winneshiek Photophage

Winneshiek:The first time I heard Al's voice on the phone, I hung up. An old friend and Vietnam Vet, I had been warned by his sister that this time he was dangerously agitated and potentially violent. But after the eighth time he called to complain about "a black spot floating around, suckin' up sunlight" and was so consistent in his details, I decided to drive out to his little farmstead and look-in on him.

     Al had a history of violent delusions associated with post-traumatic stress syndrome. And I'm sorry to say, he was the rare sort of case that unjustly stereotypes many such veterans. He had been in and out of various Vet Hospitals all over the country, had pulled a gun on what seemed very nearly everybody, and had been talked down from a water tower sniping situation at least once. He was a twenty-two years old First Sergeant when his platoon patrolled up a little creek bed near the Mekong in 1968. He came back one week later carrying two of his buddies. That might not be just what set Al off, but it's the one thing he told me about.

     He lived 2 miles east of Isted. I drove cautiously through the barbed wire gate at the gravel drive to his house. Last time I visited Al, he'd gotten hold of a pile of claymore land mines. I vainly scanned the graveled surface ahead for any sign of disturbance knowing full well Al was a master at camoflague. But then I glimpsed a small glint in an oak tree near the house, and knew it was a surveillance camera. If he hadn't wanted me to come, I realized, he would have taken care of that by now.

     He plunged out of his door as I pulled up to the house. His thin wiry, frame stuck out of a black kevlar vest and an M-16A-1 slung on his shoulder. His long gray hair was pulled back tightly into a pony tail and his white beard braided under his chin. A vintage Colt .45 automatic rested in his shoulder strap which dangled a strand of beads and an owl feather. I thought I was gonna fill my pants.

     "Al, you're looking--well?" I started.

     "Bullshit!" he yelled. He grabbed me by my forearm and started dragging me across the yard to a field of long grass. "I look damn scared to hell, don't I? I look like I'm ready for the latex lounge suite, again, huh? Damn straight, soldier! ARVN's got me real spooked, boy! Real spooked!"

     "ARVN was back in the war, Al," I sputtered, wrenching my arm out of his grip.

     "It's war now, soldier! It's snackin' on sunshine and burnin' up my grass and killed both my cows. And it's right over there!" he shouted, pointing at low bank of earth before a line of oaks.

     "The glowing black ball or whatever," I offered.

     He stared at me, his green eyes berserk and wild, "You know how to fire a weapon, son?"

     I nodded.

     "It's gonna come out, soon. Always does 'round early afternoon-that's when the sun's brightest. It's makes four passes, each about a klick long. Kills everything that gets under it-are you listening to me, son? Cuz I just as soon as let that thing burn-up your milk-fed carcass if you're not! I'll hit it with the smoke on the first pass and you open up with this," he handed me his M-16. "That'll distract it. Then, I hit it with the old Stinger. See if that'll rock ARVN's world."

     "A Stinger?" I howled in disbelief.

     "Everything's pre-positioned. Never start a fight without superior firepower, son," he winked.

     We walked out to the low bank and settled down in the tall grass to wait. Al studied me keenly and it unnerved me.

     "Settin' like that will give you scoliosis, soldier," he muttered as he lit a cigarette. He drew out his Colt .45 and began cleaning the barrel.

     "What the hell is going on?" I demanded.

     "You're settin' funny. You'll get scoliosis that way."

     "What's going on?" I asked again.

     "Keep your wits about you at all times," Al snapped, poking me in the ribs with the automatic as if it were his finger. "ARVN's out there. He can hear everything you do-and probably what you think. Just do what I tell you and I won't have to drag you out of here in a bag!"

     I got mad. I knocked his hand holding the gun out the way and snagged his collar. "You're nuts, AL! There's no ARVN! There's no black ball eating the sun! It's just you, Al, and you're fuckin' nuts!"

     The ground throbbed and the air filled with a strange, warbling thrumming. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up and my skin tingled.

     "Get down, grunt!" Al barked.

     On the other side of the bank, from amidst a pile of dead brush, a perfect black sphere rose into the sky. It looked to be about fifteen feet in diameter and by the way the air shimmered and danced around it, it put out a tremendous amount of heat. The thing climbed to about fifty feet up and began smoothly floating southeast. The grass far down below it smoldered and vaporized. A rabbit, sensing some predator in the air overhead, froze. As the sphere's shadow glided over the rodent, the poor creature's eyes rolled up in its head and it began to squirm and wriggle grotesquely. Suddenly, it was aflame, and wriggled no longer.

     Al wasted no time, but hurled a pair of smoke grenades into the sphere's path. As the smoke billowed into the air around the thing, it seemed to slow down. Seeing my chance, I opened up with the M-16. Sparks danced along the thing's side as the bullets ricocheted away. The ball veered sharply in my direction. I got to my feet and fired another burst. Suddenly, a terrific explosion burst just beneath it. It stopped, hovering in mid-air. A bright beam of blue-green light shot out of its side, burning a wide swath ahead of it. I heard Al scream. The ball stopped shooting its beam and proceeded along its original course.

     I raced to where I heard Al scream. I found him next to a puddle of rain water bathing his burned forearm and smearing it with cold clay.

     "Is it bad?" I asked.

     He shook his head and pointed to the sphere, "Watch."

     I looked up and the sky went black. Pitch black; not even stars were visible.

     "Al?" I muttered in awe.

     "I know. Watch this," he said. I heard him strike a match and saw the brief sputter of spark, but nothing else. I looked up at the sphere; light flared from its edges like the corona of the sun during a total eclipse. It looked like the eye of some vengeful god. Scared, I took a step to run and fell on top of Al. He grabbed me by the arm and dragged me away.

     Emerging from the blackened area was like drawing aside a curtain. As we reached the house, I turned and beheld a dome of seemingly impenetrable darkness irresistibly gliding southeasterly. I shuddered.

     "Cheer up, grunt," Al slapped my back as we entered his house. "We'll get it tomorrow."

     I looked at him blankly. "Why do we have to do it?"

     "Cause it's my goddamn farm it's wreckin', that's why. An' nobody else is gonna believe me-or you-when you call 'em up and tell 'em Charlie's burnin' up shit down here. Now, are they? Damn straight not!"

     I ruminated the day's events. Convincing the authorities felt ludicrous and wasteful. Al was pacing nervously up and down the room. I sat down in an easy chair. On the table was a pair of night vision goggles Al had apparently been fiddling with.

     "What does it do at night?" I asked.

     Al smiled, "I have no idea. But it doesn't come out of that hole. Now, you're thinking we should go in after Charlie-you're thinking we oughta waste him in his own burrow. That's a bold plan, soldier. Real bold. But as you know, there's no defense against a bold attack-as long as it's made with honor!"

     We piled gear in the middle of the living room; grenades, flares, C-4 cordage, a couple of cone-shaped charges of Semtex, the M-16A1, M-60, and the AK-47, and waited for dark. About 11pm, we got suited up and set off across the field for the low bank of earth. After making certain nothing was on the other side, we descended into the little depression below the bank and made for the clump of dead brush. Inside, we found the gaping wide hole the ball had come through. We tied off a line to a tree stump and silently slid down the steep, fire-polished walls of the tunnel. After going down about twenty feet, we walked through a gigantic hatchway into a huge room. The room pulsed with an ominously familiar dull thrumming. Huge silo-like cylinders glowed and pulsed in time. Consoles flashed streams of lights. The room felt alive, but the stink of death was unbearable. Everywhere we looked, twisted hulks of decomposing alien meat lay rotting, most were burned.

     Al raised an eyebrow and put an unlit cigarette in his mouth.

     The room formed around a large circular shaft about twenty feet across and leading straight almost fifty feet where the dull thrumming emanated. Peering down, we saw a silvery disk the diameter of the shaft and surrounding it, embedded almost in the walls were twelve black spheres. Every few seconds, a whine surged to a peak and a bolt of electricity the size of a man's waist arched from the midst of one of the spheres to the silvery disk. A few seconds passed and then it's neighbor also discharged into the disk.

     "They're some sort of super-solar collector!" I blurted.

     "Something sure went wrong with ARVN's chain of command," Al looked around the room at the alien carcasses and lit his cigarette.

     "Don't you get it? Those black balls are machines! They collect and store all kinds of solar energy!"

     "I know that." Al blew some smoke. "An' we're gonna close and seal the hatch under a ton of earth so they can't get back out to their place in the sun, soldier."

     We studied the hatchway, searching for hours to find a mechanism that operated it. After a few tries with some promising buttons, we set our charges and shut the hatchway. The giant door slid out of the wall and sealed over the hole.

     We climbed out of the tunnel, and retired to the low bank. Al took out his remote control and unceremoniously clicked the firing switch. A sharp bang raised the clump of dead brush a foot or two and then all vanished in a cloud of dust.

     Al reached into his knapsack and hauled out a six-pack of beer. We hung around for a couple of hours snarfing nachos and beer and then hiked back to the house when nothing else happened. After a change and some sleep, I headed home.

     Since I hadn't heard from him for a month, I went up this past weekend. As I pulled in, I could tell something was wrong. In the middle of the lawn were three blackened depressions, each the size of corn bin. I expected to see the ground littered with M-60 casings, but saw none. Terror seized me. I ran out to the low bank and beheld a gigantic crater half a mile across where the tunnel had once been. There was no sign of Al--or ARVN.