So what did happen?

So what did happen?

Any truth is a possibility

It was a dark and stormy night, no, really it was, November in England and 2am. The wind was gusting strong enough to bend the branches on the old trees outside my window, the squalls of rain crashed into these windows, waking me from a troubled sleep. I tried the lights, nothing, the power was out, not unusual when storms got this violent. I stumbled from my bed trying to get my mind into some sort of action. I kept a torch on my bedside table for such situations and so had no trouble getting to my tiny sitting room. Then the torch went out, flat battery, which was odd since the battery was almost new and modern LED lights are economical in power use. The log fire was still flickering with life and was soon encouraged into producing warmth and flame powered light. I lit up a couple of candles and stood an old, blackened kettle on the step beside the burning logs. I promised myself hot chocolate but poured a large whisky instead, the glass and bottle handy, where I left them just three hours ago. The battery on my laptop was fully charged, so I could try and find news about this particular storm. I clicked start and then my problems really began. Instead of going to the BBC weather, I got a grainy black and white image of a snowstorm. It took several seconds before my sleep addled brain could react to this. I rechecked my start up procedures and I got the same thing, I was not in control of what the laptop was showing, which means I has not in control of what it contained. I shut down completely. I waited then restarted, same thing. I was feeling very much alone, not only in my cottage in the middle of the night, but I knew the phone lines would be down along with power lines and cell phone reception was always variable at best. The Broad band hub was dark, no power and its battery exhausted. How do I regain control of my laptop? I would need internet connection so that I could not obey my brain telling me to reset your password. I tried more neat Scotch, but no inspiration came. I tuned in my battery powered radio but could not find connection to any station. The battery was almost flat in this as well as the torch. I shut everything down, added a couple of logs to my fire, put the spark guard back in place and went back to bed. I could not sleep, the questions of what, and who, and how, had someone taken over my computer haunted me. If there was no web connection how had anyone got into my system? When I went to bed first time all had been OK, so what ever happened must have been between the time I shut down and the time the cables all got torn apart. Why the black and white snowstorm? Nothing made much sense. Then my cell phone rang. No caller number shown and indeed the connection bars showed no connection available. I picked up and pressed answer. I asked who is calling but got no answer, just silence, this was beginning to get on my nerves. I pressed close call and waited, the phone rang again, and again same situation of silence when I answered. The state of charge indicator was showing very little power left, which was odd it was fully charged yesterday and not used since. I turned the phone off, shut down completely. I tried to sleep and failed completely; I know I had been drinking but not drunk to point of imagining stuff. I thought I may be dreaming some sort of nightmare, if so it was one I could not wake up from. I went to my bathroom and splashed cold water on my face, very definitely not dreaming this.

Slowly the night turned into dawn, and dawn became morning. I doused my candles and put more logs on the fire. The water in my kettle was now hot and I made some very strong coffee, put my laptop and cell phone on my kitchen table. I drank my coffee black with no sugar while staring at these devices. I turned on the cell phone a single bar showed but it did not ring, I tried call log, but nothing showed up. I turned on the laptop the battery status showed only 10% yet it had been fully charged last night and turned off ever since. I still had no power to my hub and experience told me it would be another day before the authorities got around to restoring power to my isolated home, this left yet another decision to be made did I use up the 10% of battery life trying to find what was going on? I decided to give it a try, everything was normal, no internet but my folders and files were all there and available. The storm had died down, still gusting strong winds but nothing damaging and so I ventured outside, one heavy branch had been torn from a tree and was blocking my garage. I started to walk round this, with the intention of finding a saw when I stopped, where the branch had left the trunk, should have been some sign of rot inside the splintered and jagged wound but what was there was a healthy-looking timber just ripped apart. I found the tree it came from, and this also showed a healthy-looking trunk Even more of a puzzle was that the tree missing its branch was at the front left side of my cottage the branch was now at rear, right side, how did it end up where it did? Who or what had been out in that storm in the dark moving branches? And why? I did a tour of my garden nothing else seemed out of place, I searched inside the cottage, not a lot of it, one bedroom, a bathroom, a kitchen, and the sitting room, it was very old and when built did not have a bathroom, for that matter when first built it did not have piped water and certainly no sewage system, while electricity had not been invented. The old well was sealed over but I knew it still contained water. I checked the cover, it was still in place but round one side of it were traces of a crystalline white powder.

I stood and looked at this a while then got my act together enough to go to my garage and get the key to unlock the well cover. I opened this and stepped aside quickly I had no idea what to expect but nothing happened. I peered over the rim of the well and shone my torch down, all I saw was the refection of the light showing on water about 30 feet down, just as it was when the well was last sealed shut. I examined the rim and the cover nothing showing damage and no trace of powder on inner edge of the cover. I sealed it all up again and went back to my coffee. Later I cleared the branches from garage door and drove the 2 miles to my nearest neighbour. I found them in their garden studying a tree with a torn-off branch, just like mine the branch ended up the opposite end of the garden, from the place it came from and had gone round the corner of their house seemingly without touching it and they were just as puzzled as I was. They also reported every battery in the house had drained out flat overnight. We started to phone round our other neighbours they all reported batteries going flat and mains power being non-existent. One had their own generator and reported this seemed to have been running till the fuel ran out, but they got no power into their home. Then came the news that one guy who lived at the top of the hill, had been taking photographs of the storm and one showed a shape like an old-fashioned air ship, which was shown up by a flash of lightening just before the camera battery suddenly went flat. Once he had power back in the camera, he circulated this picture to all of his neighbours and the local paper, who never published it, we never found out why, but the authorities issued claims that any and all strange sightings were due to misinterpretation of features in a very violent electrical storm.

But who moved the branches off our trees and why? The photographer was a guy called Tom who, like me, lived on his own and was over half a mile from the nearest other building. He had a visit from a lady claiming to be from the police, she showed him an ID card and wanted to see his camera and the photo he took during the storm. He showed both, but “forgot” to mention that every picture was saved to a separate USB card. She examined the camera then asked if she could have a cup of tea, he obliged, she returned the camera without its memory card and she kept the printed photo. She left and Tom phoned the local police, who admitted they had never heard of this lady until she turned up asking for directions to his place and showing them a MI6 ID They also said they have been told their duty was to avoid local speculation and keep to the official line about misinterpretation of sightings. Tom called me, I drove over to his place and we stood in his garden trying to get a fix on the direction he was facing when took the picture of the “airship.” As far as we could recon, he was looking up at the sky but facing down the hill towards my place. He printed a new copy of the photo from the back up stick. We stood again, in the garden and used this photo to get an exact fix. The “airship” was over a deserted and tumble-down old barn halfway down the hill about a mile from my place. We drove as near to it as possible and walked the last quarter of a mile through a still soaking wet tangle of long grass and brambles, The old barn was now just a heap of ashes. White crystalline ashes. We walked round cautiously it was so odd the pile of ash was perfectly circular and rose into a cone shape with a sharp point. The winds and rain of the storm had not disturbed it. We found a long branch and poked at the cone, it took some effort but we succeeded in breaking its surface, as we started to try and see inside we heard a helicopter and suddenly the place was full of armed soldiers lowering themselves down ropes from 2 large army helicopters. They pointed weapons at as and ordered us away from the cone. The marched us away but I did manage to get a glimpse of two men shovelling the crystalline ash into bags.

Tom and I were taken to a parked Land Rover, one with darkened windows, inside was the lady who had visited Tom and two other men. The rover drove off without any of them speaking to us. We were taken to a disused airfield about ten miles away, at least until then I had thought it disused. We were ushered into a tumble-down cottage then down some steps into a different world. Bright lights clean paint and more computer screens than I had ever seen before. We passed through this room to a normal looking office one with desk, chairs and even a sofa. We were told to wait and offered tea or coffee. About ten minutes later an army officer, wearing the insignia of a general came in and sat behind the desk, the lady and her 2 silent companions, left the room. He did not introduce himself, but he knew both our full names and histories. He gave us documents to sign, the official secret act. He waited until we both signed. He then said because of our histories he was going to trust us with the truth. The airship was a secret weapon being developed to harness the electromagnets forces of a thunderstorm and use this power as a weapon, one that could turn anything and everything into crystalline ash. One side effect they had not expected that as well as grabbing power from lightening, the machine also dragged all power from any battery system within its range. My turning on the laptop as the machine was overhead had been bad timing the distorted snowstorm I saw, was electromagnetic interference. The torn down branches had been examined and it seems that in both cases nails had been embedded in the branch, probably years ago , and the mental of these nails were affected by the magnetic forces involved and so the branch was torn from the tree. They were lifted up till the nails melted, then the branches just fell into the positions we found them. The ash near my well were spillage from this action.