"Bloodline of the Annunakii"

�Bloodline of the Annunakii�

�

"Who, Oh Great Saurian Draco, LuCanious, Our Father Confessor, we implore thee, who has begotten these abominations, these despicable humans who steal and plunder our lands? Oh Lord of Reptiles, Great Draco, where is thy sting? Yea, I shall smite my fear makers. Let me drink the blood of the vanquished!�
First Saurian Battle Hymn, 9th Epistle

Invasion
February 2011

A pale orange sun hung in the late afternoon sky, the dulled orb peering at an unfolding scene below, now spread across the broad field. Veiled with offshore mist, risen up in the past half hour, the orb appeared more a wound than the honored bringer of life for troubled Earth.
Wounded eyes gazed upon a scene born of unimaginable horror. Nothing could have prepared them for the insanity of these frightening visions. The aliens had come, as the reports said they might�eventually. Elly�s reports had told him this long before. The terrified couple clung to each other as the stress of the unfolding scene pressed against them.
Again, they heard more muffled screams of people that they thought that they knew from Trinidad. Flashes of brilliant light followed these screams.
The afternoon had faded with an unbearable slowness as the full effect of the alien invasion truly hit them, leaving them stunned and silent. As much as they thought they were equipped, having known of its coming through Elly�s, �second sight,� reality proved far worse than anything a pale imagination of warning could have provided them. It was as if a movie had come down from the screen, its special effects integrating their lives.
Sounds of dry, falling leaves clicked in the silence around them; their shuffling brittle sounds �tic-tac� on the light breeze were all that could be heard. The air was still and quiet, apart from the occasional clank of equipment far below.
From the high rocky overhang, like masochistic voyeurs, they watched in silence, unable to look away; every action guarded against detection of movement or sound.
The two souls had been forced to remain hidden since their return from the town center. It had proved to be the only tangibly safe place at that time, at least until they could somehow escape into the darkness with the night that was coming in earlier than they were prepared for. For now, they wanted only to be hidden.
Silently witnessing the systematic murder of the citizens of Trinidad unfolding on the field below, they listened to them cry out for help that they could not bring. Truly, it was a moment for god to intervene.
The day was catastrophe written in bold strokes across the mental and physical landscape. Uncertainty permeated everything of the familiar, and they were having difficulty remaining quiet. They needed to be gone, but it was not yet safe until they could detect a pattern that would enable them to avoid detection, capture, or death, they waited.
�Well, old buddy, everything you know is wrong,� Sam thought dejectedly to himself, and held on to Elly for dear life. The way things had been going in the world, Sam had supposed that martial law would have been declared first, at least in Europe and perhaps the US, but never had he even dreamed that those aliens who were setting up operations below him, would ever show themselves here, of all places to come. Trinidad was of no military value, no strategy could be enacted here.
The shock was absolute and gripped him with a new fury, yet his guts were like water. Life was a mess and Sam was a mess.
The violent reptilian creatures milled about like automatons, unpacking huge containers to set up their camp, with no apparent direction, for they all looked the same; no officers or the like to distinguish them, one from the other. They proceeded as if they had done it a hundred times before, like robots, and they probably had. Sam watched them with small opera binoculars that he had brought along that day.
There was another smaller species of alien too, only a few feet tall, darting in and out of the proceedings, inspecting, watching; Sam recognized the race of the Grey�s that had been so over-promoted through the media for the past decade or more. He felt creeped out by them, by everything, and knew he had to hold on; he was losing it. The thing that tipped him over was the sudden awareness of remembering that anyone could buy an alien slant-almond-eyed inflated head for a birthday balloon.
�Getting us ready to meet them, I suppose� Sam thought.
�Slipping into our culture; through movies and popular fiction, insinuated into our world. This is no coincidence. Some lousy kinda� balloon celebration, today,� he mused to himself.
The couple�s physical discomfort was mixed with quiet rage and foreboding; silent anger mounted at this invasion and at missing their cozy home. They felt divorced from life.
Terror was born of the understanding that these creatures would kill them if they were by chance discovered. The town square in Trinidad, full of butchered bodies had been proof enough of that.
�The blood feast, the way that they�� and Sam�s thinking trailed away to avoid the memory.
The biting cold of the late winter afternoon, intensified by their proximity to the Pacific Ocean, stung their exposed skin. They had worn no gloves, thinking to be gone only a short while.
Today was to be special for them, though just how much, only Sam knew. Time necessary to do the easy Sunday things that lovers do had now turned into the business of staying alive, if indeed there was a reason to want to, anymore. It defied their imaginations to speculate on how they would accomplish the task of living beyond that day, or even through the next hour.
During the day, the sun had tried to burn through the coastal haze-but to no avail; odd patches of blue had appeared from time to time, stabbing the field with bright bars of sudden yellow light, disturbing the threatening military activity, convening below.
The creatures avoided and moved away from the light, looking skyward continually, searching around them, as if they themselves were the threatened ones.
�Like an allergic reaction,� Elly thought, watching, curious , as tears came to her eyes. �The light seems to agitate them as well, provoking their angry outbursts.�
The reptiles squinted, and did not seem to be used to this environment; it actually appeared to scare them.
�Why would that be?� Elly wondered further, and a natural human inclination appeared in her realm of possibilities. Perhaps there was some way to exploit this to work in their favor. She would remember this for later, if there proved to be a later time.
The watchers embraced each other, relaxing some. They felt as safe as could be expected, for the moment. Never mind to sneak away now, as they had done before. Such brazen, unthinking courage they had shown at the sudden appearance of the saucers when they chose to run, not in time to warn anyone on Main Street. Too late for heroics, and far too late for any lives to be saved that day, Sam thought.
As nearby as the village of Trinidad lay to the Fairgrounds, the monsters had somehow gotten there first.
Thoughts raced through Elly�s mind, there on the bitter afternoon cold and breezy hillside. Sam watched her as she watched them.
The unusually attractive, highlighted hair of the blond woman seemed out of place in the clutter of mere rocks and leaves. Something in Elly�s bearing said bigger, better things for this one. He felt charged with regret, and tried to will it away.
She would have been working on her latest novel today, but she had come here from Eureka to visit Sam, wanting to be with her lover today, foregoing her driving need to work. It occurred to her that she had been torn about today�s activity, and that her Guides had mentioned �a date with destiny,� as she had begun her editing last night. It had been an honest-to-god premonition, a threat, but vague in the direction that it had come from. Unlike any usual message from her disincarnate advisors, it seemed to be a code, which she had needed to decipher.
Elly knelt on the pine needle carpet, her thick, long golden strands of hair held back by a baseball cap, showing only her well defined mouth and large green eyes, hidden by a screen of scrub pines and large rocks. She worried about her skin being too visible; she could not keep a tan, it disappeared by December and she was as pink-skinned as a baby.
They were hidden a hundred yards or so from the clearing where the ships had landed, up the rocky slope, well hidden from the evil of the reptilians notice, or so they chose to believe.
     Every dream of their future was gone, she thought, the particular reality that had drawn she and Sam together, was gone in a giant wind of change. Events had shaken them from their lives, their homes and everything even remotely meaningful. A gentle, peaceful and sacred time was removed forever. Memories would have to be the strength that held them together, now, with silence and determination as the catalyst that would get them out of there in one piece. Fear was on watch and ever present.
Elly had known that this threat was coming, this attack on the lives of their country and the nations of the world. She had perceived it psychically, well over a year before, as had many others in her personal network, and had warned Sam and the townsfolk to prepare for the chaotic change, but supposed she had prayed for more time before it blew into their lives and scattered the remnants of their world.
Elly knew, just as everyone else had known, that the reptilian aliens had declared their violent intent, but thought that perhaps they would not come there, not to her new home in Trinidad with Sam. Why would they need this place?
They were miniscule, compared to the larger cities that the alien forces had already taken everywhere across the planet Earth. At least, the ones not being overseen and controlled by the government forces of the CUSA, detaining anyone that they suspected on the pretext of collaboration or terrorism; the last, a particular favorite of the most notorious terrorist nation of all. Manifest destiny was still the credo of their country, or more correctly, the mission statement of the corporation.
Again, Elly found herself distressed at the lifetime of precognition that she had always known in her world. Why did she always have to have the unbelievable visions when no one around her could see them?
Her cronies, who allowed her to ply them with what they assumed were thriller scenarios for the new works that she was contemplating, sarcastically knew her as the �good-news girl.� The spirits of the dead came to her regularly, and those soon to be transitioned also came to her; vivid, unsettling pictures were by this time a mainstay, a part of her novelist�s life.
The �spooky girl,� as adults had called her since her youngest years when growing up in Seattle, had known that this day, or one approximating it, would eventually find her and everyone else on her world.
In an attempt to understand her increasingly confusing world, she had acquired, simultaneously, a PhD in psychology and in history, at the early age of 25; in reality trying to throw up a curtain of authentication, so that the jeers of people would stop with her hard won accreditation.
Still, the images came, unbidden. Now, Sam knew them and was finally a believer, firmly on the road to find out.
�Why does it require a tragedy to get people moving?� she thought in her distress. �Why the perpetual insanity of drastic and murderous intent to make changes appear in life?�
Sam had convinced Elly that he was taking her warnings seriously, but to keep the peace with him and to move further into their love affair, she had stifled her insight into his real feelings, or his misgivings, and had shut down any pressure on him, to give him time to talk more about other necessary areas.
Elly had hoped the jarring visions would someday leave her, but knew that they probably would not. Her Guides had said that she had chosen this way, and had offered herself to be here for this event.
A riot of crows swept out of the misty sky, descending upon the strange events in front of them, looking for food. It was then that Sam noticed, higher up, vultures, darker shapes with broad wingspans, in the sky, circling in preparation for their feast to come.
�Pets, no doubt,� he thought angrily.
More sudden, high-pitched ripping laser blasts flashed in the moody light of the afternoon. Sam tightened his jaw, the joint popping loudly in the silence, shaking Elly out of her entranced thinking. She glanced to see if anyone or thing below had heard the sound, even through the blasts. It had seemed so loud to her. She looked at Sam again, relieved that they had been together when this crazy shit had come down.
His full name was Samuel Makepeace Thatcher, or just �good old Sam,� to the town�s citizenry. It was his mother�s unique idea for the middle name. She loved the name; yet true to his style, Da�, his sainted father, had hated it and had called him �Sunshine� for months afterwards. His mother had made a threat of bodily harm to his father, Charley, and he had stopped his verbal abuse. Yet, he refused to speak to Sam�s mother for weeks after, she had told Sam years later. Not that she had minded all that much.
�A damn hippy name,� his father had said. Sam had never noticed the harassment; he had preferred, as now, to ignore the old sod.
Even in the pale afternoon light, surrounded by danger, Elly took the moment to sketch Sam�s handsome profile with her eyes. The thick, wavy black hair, shining blue eyes and wonderful smile called to her constantly. His face represented strength, and was one of the reasons she had not gotten further away before now. She could not run away, with him or without him.
She was so in love with him that it would have been impossible to leave. She felt sensation in his touch, remembered the warmth of his gentle, never-ending kisses of the night before. She could not be without him for any further moments in time.
Even so, where would they have gone if she had convinced him to leave with her before this dreadful event? Trinidad was a small town, but she could not fathom going somewhere smaller than here, not with her career skyrocketing as it had been in the past year.
People out there were listening to her ideas, and crazy or not, fact or fiction, they did not care, for it opened their minds to possibilities. She knew she had an audience that needed to hear the truth about CUSA and its diabolical shenanigans, and she kept at it consistently.
Closing her eyes, her thoughts found Sam and embraced him, as he turned to her, so close. He kissed her brow softly and smiled as best he could under the circumstances. She threw her arms around his neck and hugged him fiercely, with all her might, thinking that there was no place like home, and that he was her home.
�Elly feels great,� Sam thought, entertaining a wistful resonance.
�Why this, today?� his anger returning. �Why, on this day of all our days together? Why this damned interruption in my world? Couldn�t these fucker aliens have been happy with seizing Nuevo York and London? Fuck this! Well, that�s why they call it disaster, Sam�there�s never any warning!�
His mind reeled with a sensory overload, and he felt himself a very large ass when he realized that not only had he been given the warning, but also that the messenger of the coming madness was right there with him. What an insipid fool he had been with this matter! He had trusted her.
Then, why had he done nothing? And�What could he have done?
It had been a long shot for both of them, he knew, but Sam felt that he should have hedged his bets, moved them inland from the coast, where the aliens seemed to have focused their invasions, elsewhere in the world. They might both be safe right now, somewhere else. Regardless, where would that safety have come from, in the disaster that was closing in on them all?
Sam dismissed the troubled memory. His best friend and lover was beside him, sweet Elesandra Taylor, or Elly. She was the great emotional driving force of his world nowadays. She had helped him work through many emotional problems that he had carried for years, with regard to his family, several months after they had first met. The conditioned memories had been something of an obstacle for the couple in the beginning. He was drawn to the intimacy, yet issues prevented them getting to the matter sooner.
Sam remembered the words that he had written for her a while back, per her request, that had helped him to crystallize his thinking on many matters. Writing had been difficult, but so necessary and had proved cathartic to him. It had helped flush out a nasty bunch of issues that were gumming up his life. Before Elly had come into his world, Sam had been locked in a pointless and meaningless emotional holding pattern, absorbed by the past, with no mind for any future of consequence.
Elly was an empath: a psychic, visited by her personal �Guides,� and could sense people�s thoughts unusually well at times. If, their personal mind-door was open for discovery, then she could know them immediately. People generally opened discussions with signature remarks; from these she could then access their Akashic, astral record of sorts to work through to exactly where the roadblocks were, thus enabling understanding. Her Guides were equivalent to guardian angels, as religious advocate and spiritualist alike generally knew these essence spirits. They are gifts from the Creator, and available for any and all; the door is always open to their counsel.
All sentient beings have guides standing at their shoulder; the still, small voice that we hear from time to time, the voice of good, offering another side to the events in one�s life. The nasty little red one with the pitchfork was reptilian, hidden and unaccountable, shunning the light, creating havoc, much as the ones that were emerging from the shaft, right now.
Several hundred cousins of the thought form, know to the Earth world as devil, were on the field below them, busily overcoming the possibility of good seeing a way to triumph on this chaotic day.
Elly had sensed much about Sam in their first days together, when they had attempted to know one another, and to drop some of their defenses. They had both been awkward, perceiving how strong their feelings were, undeniable in the strongest sense of the word. He was in love for the first and last time, and Elly delighted in knowing it, and the excitement that it gave her. He was determined to make that sensation last, hardwired as Sam was for a lifelong love, and one soul to share it with.
He thought about the dinner for tonight, again distractedly, knowing the meal was burnt up with the rest of their home. It was to have been a special night.
�Don�t think about that,� he told himself, beginning to think about it all over again. It suddenly amazed him that he could consider a goddamn pot roast when aliens had invaded the Earth and were probably loading their ray guns right now, waiting for him to show himself.
Their house had been in a shady grove of redwoods, surrounded with quaking aspen and rhododendron, wild-oat grass, and flax, sedate and removed from the road. A solid, change resistant house, it had been the home that Sam had longed for all of his days. He had wanted it with Elly, now that she had come to his world. A pile of cinders and memories were all that remained of it, but they still had each other, so far. This night would be the supreme test of staying alive.
A sudden harsh shout startled them back to the emerging scene on the field. A squad of soldiers below was dispersing the group of Grey�s who seemed to be disputing something. Elly squeezed Sam�s hand for comfort.
Sam shook his head, hoping that when his thoughts cleared that this bad dream would be gone. It was not, of course; it was worse for being more real than before.
Sam remembered her ring, feeling in his pocket for the precious symbol of his love, and found it was safe there.
�Well,� sighing heavily, he said, �I suppose it doesn�t matter where I ask her, as long as I do it soon. Time grows short, and we need to bring some sanity to this day and make it worth remembering, beyond all this other threatening bullshit.�
Elly turned her warm eyes on him, questioning. Sensing his new thoughts, her face was suddenly attentive to him in the waning light. Though disturbed with her own complex feelings and the frantic mental activity of the creatures on the field, she had caught this particular thought of Sam�s and was sensing some elusive sensational joy, intuiting that everything was going to be all right, eventually. If they could get away from these creatures, to anywhere safer, all would be well, or better at least.
Over their heads, several brilliant silver metal spheres raced by and disappeared in seconds. Something else had briefly caught Sam�s eye as they passed, but as to what it was he could not be definite. Something about the saucers, those that everyone used to call UFO�s nudged his mind with a sense of irony. Everyone had believed they existed- except the CUSA, and believed that when they did come that they would be friendly. Extraterrestrial bringers of peace, harmony and really cool technology; disappointingly, here was the reality. Nothing looked even remotely friendly about these creatures.
A strange sense of quiet, like that before a strom, had settled over the day since early this morning and Elly knew that her level of anticipation had risen alarmingly high, even before their departure from the house. She had not mentioned it to Sam, and she had been unconsciously alert to any change of situation. Yet, even through the strength of their communication, there was something that the Elders were holding back, and could not yet tell her. It was strong enough to sense, but not to define; it was their way of non-intervention.
Having open psychic insight, Elly was challenged to decipher her own predicaments. Otherwise, she could find simple answers from books, which were not always able to see the many sides of an issue.
�Thank God for Sam,� Elly found herself thinking, placing her hand on his shoulder. Her mind drifted away to memories of that morning.
Everyone in Trinidad had panicked when the alien troops marched onto Main Street, blasting everyone and everything that they saw, and beginning to systematically invade homes, dragging people out, to the streets to kill and then to feast upon, for that was the way of their victory.
People had grabbed guns, gear and supplies to stay alive, and headed out their back doors towards the deep refuge of the forest that most knew like a street map. She understood that the locals all knew what to expect from emergencies, even in a disaster as this had proved to be. These tough Northern Californians knew the forest night.
Being prepared was a woods-smart way, and anyone who lived around fire, as they did, was constantly organized against the day, the emergency that could change their lives in an instant.
Like today, but without the added hassle of uptight murdering lizard aliens with bad attitudes, big damn guns and an agenda that indicated human extinction. Not your run-of-the-mill situation.
The smart citizens of the town had melted into the forest cover. Those who were still alive after the sudden, violent onslaught of the predators, fled without looking back. They had quick marched to the paths and roads out of town. Many of them were captured and murdered on their exodus to the nether lands; the aliens had been watching and waiting everywhere for them. It was a set-up, many thought; they were fish in a barrel hunting for the bad guys.
It seemed as if the walking handbags had had a working foreknowledge, or had scouted out the town and outlying area in order to intercept and destroy as many of the people as they could in the shortest amount of time. It was simply hard for anyone to accept that these creatures had known about their world before they set down on the Fairgrounds Field several hours before.
The past forty-eight hours were a bleak haze for them; final radio reports heard yesterday reported the thousands of people across the world that had been murdered by the invaders and the horrible ways in which they had died. Even in times of the utterly incomprehensible, the news scavengers were as bloodily colorful as always.
Grayed fog began to drift lazily by them as the light faded from the day. Pockets of cold moved on the breeze from the ocean as the sun began to go down. Not a creature in this normally active forest stirred around them. Only crows and vultures flew overhead in the soupy weather. Sam imagined that the revolting smell that he had detected was equally unappetizing to the forest creatures and kept them hidden.
Sam studied the landscape again and the activity below. Lights had come on, revealing their repellant forms still moving around the area.
He had been here alone just days before, walking back from the beach spot that he had always thought of as his own place to go and to think. He had been right down there, where the killing field was now soaking up the blood of his friends. Sam wondered if his Da� or perhaps some close friends were actually among the corpses.
�Naw-w,� Sam thought, �Da� is to ornery to die; not without taking a few of these bastard aliens out, with him.�
Sam considered that this was an odd reflection, in light of the fact that he was thinking of his father at all.
It was here at the ocean, strolling the grounds days before, that he had finally made the decision to ask Elly to marry him, and had gone into town and bought the ring from Perkins Jewelers. He had seen her eyeing the display weeks before, and had this ring designed and made especially for her. Elly liked life, and her jewelry simple. It made them a good match. He knew that things would always be strong with them.
Sam remembered the news stories that he had listened to some nights before, the graphic verbal pictures of the invaders, so he had known what was happening to the world and what the creatures looked like, up close. It gave the drunks down at the Eagle Beak Tavern another reason, and drunks always look for a reason, to bolster their spirits with boozing, swaggering and staggering around Main Street boasting their macho shit, a mainstay of their lives. Of course, his Da� had done nothing about the little celebration on Main Street.
Sam realized that his father, the town drunk and Sheriff, not necessarily in that order, was never down at the tavern, drinking with those cretins; funny, that he was never seen socializing in town.
�The government won�t step aside for these bastards,� the drunks had squealed, �CUSA will save the day,� they had angrily slurred, playing their country music loud and well into the night.
�How little they knew,� Sam thought, �or would truly have wanted to know about the impossibility of stopping this brood.�
That was before the �Big Shut Down.� When television, Internet, land phone lines, cell phone satellites and radio, all had gone off-line, most had gotten the message. Alien craft of every description had previously been reported in the skies around the globe, the reports of their atrocities coming in constantly, until yesterday when they had all ground to a halt.
Time had stopped and life had stopped; no news was now very bad news.
Another gigantic blast from below and echoing explosion lit up the foggy field causing Sam and Elly to drop lower, concealing themselves from any chance discovery.
The highway traffic through town had picked up after that shutdown. People seemed to understand from the reports that it was time to get out; to go back to the land, or something like it that would give them a chance. To escape the madness that had come without provocation was their only thought.
�We all have our inner voice,� Elly thought, �the one that urges us toward survival. Unfortunately, I turned the volume down that week.�
The aliens landed south of them and had imposed control over the cities, driving the population north, in their attempt to escape the carnage. The refugees had arrived for the madness that was already visited on small town America, resident now in Trinidad.
Yet, anywhere but where they had been was preferable. Trucks, motorcycles and cars frantically drove north, and out of the path of the oncoming butchers, a steady stream moving towards the enemy troops; out of the frying pan and into the fire.
�Those who had lived by the sword,� was the unspoken thought, �were now to die by the sword.�
Sam thought that his life and everyone else�s was becoming a clich� in more than the worst way imaginable.

Later that afternoon

From the damp, misted ridge outcropping, surrounded by sheltering trees and granite walls, Sam and Elly saw creatures on the far side of the field, past a low ridge, emerging from the old mine shaft. A heavier fog rolled in with a drizzle that would conceal them; they knew that their thin coats were not insulated for this weather, not by a long shot. Dampness invaded everything.
Sam remembered his pack that he had been sitting on. He silently pulled out a wool sweater and gave it to Elly, along with a scarf. It was startling just how much noise opening a pack can create on a quiet night; it was the zipper from hell.
�She�s already been feeling low,� he thought. �I gotta� get her indoors soon. But where�?�
Sam gave her a long kiss on her beautiful forehead and retrained the small opera glasses back to the creatures.
     Several hundred of the scaly beasts were gathered around the ships, out of their normal tight formations and began shouting harshly at each other.
�What�s brought this on?� Sam wondered, looking then at Elly, hoping she had picked up some mental signal from their camp. The thuggish brutes had begun striking each other, slaps and punches, heavy thwaps with no provocation, issuing forth great howls of anger and rage while giving battle.
�They�re like children,� he thought, and almost laughed aloud.
Wind gusted, then shifted, and Sam had to quickly pinch his nose, gagging.
�Ooooo-hh, yuck!� he thought, his nose turning up. In truth you could smell these reptiles long before you ever saw them.
�Rotten meat and garlic breath,� he thought. �Godzilla with morning-mouth.�
He noticed then that the troops had begun emerging from the old mine shaft in greater numbers. How had they all fit in there? He remembered it as large, for a kid, but where�and then he remembered the saucers coming from the water. His mind drew a straight line from the offshore emergence point to this cavern and the mystery was solved.
He�d had played in the cave as a child with his friends and their �Bosom Buddy Club� meetings, and wondered if one of those big buggers had found his Cub Scout knife that he�d lost inside. His Da,� the bully Sheriff, had blocked the cave opening, citing its danger, which he had always wondered about; Sam had never recovered the prized childhood possession.
No one knew who even owned the mine anymore, Sam bet.
�Why had his Da� closed it? Oh, Oh yes,� he remembered. �It happened at the same time as the murder.�
The heavily armored troops, toting bulky provisions, came from the water road and from the air in more of the large spacecraft, and from every direction, it appeared. He and Elly needed to leave this place, but he felt it was still too dangerous.
The County Exposition and Fairgrounds area, as large as several football fields, was almost full of the spaceships. An odd looking alien ship cruised over the activity below it.
�It must belong to the little ones, the Grey�s,� he thought, �my little balloon buddies.�
After several hours of watching, Sam could see that their numbers had stabilized. It seemed there were not that many aliens in residence, after all.
Sam imagined the army it would take to cover all of the major cities on Earth, and have troops left over for little old Trinidad, too.
�Enormous, no doubt. This somehow does not make me feel better.�
It became no less menacing though, for being fewer in number than he had estimated. Still, Sam decided against the Welcome Wagon for the Critter Corp, and shook his tired head, knowing that it would be some time before the two of them got another decent nights rest.
�What with all the hubbub in the state, or the world,� he corrected himself, �it�ll be some time until we see a mattress again.�
He placed his forehead against Elly�s, and let his mind wander to happier times. He felt her skin; she was warm, almost hot to the touch. Again, he felt the urgency to move on.
Who could have known that humanity�s most ferocious enemy was living beneath the Earth for all of this time that they must have been there? Under the cities and oceans all along, they were the areas that had harbored these creatures.
�Elly knew, and had said so. So? What about it? Did you really believe her then, Sammy boy?� he went on. Sam did not answer himself right away.
�Guess not�� he finally allowed. � I suppose I just did not want to face it, even though I told her that I did believe.�
Hard to say what he had believed, until now, but he would bet that the government knew that they were on-planet all along. How could they not have known? The bastard CUSA people were everywhere these days, even in his local mountains! That was how much he trusted the CUSA and all their corporate maniacs, plundering the world constantly.
The CUSA had a formidable record of atrocities, he knew. Something like this did not get past the very government that had invented the word �subterfuge.�
�That�s the part that knocks me out the most,� he thought, �the betrayal! I am officially, not going to be an idealist anymore!�
Sam�s mind wandered to the NESARA activists, and he wondered how those idealists fared on this bitter day.
�Now that the barn door is shut and the horse is long gone, I suppose I feel safe to say that I have given up idealism,� realizing that he was just like everyone else in the world of denial and unaccountability. He had been happy to simply deny and ignore that this would ever happen here.
�But, I haven�t��
He ground his teeth angrily, feeling powerless, remembering how he had been shopping with Elly in town when she had tried to warn some of the locals.
They had laughed at her, called her nuts and demented; in a nice sort of way he supposed, for Trinidad. It had been a friendly, mocking rebuke. Yes, a trying not to offend, just trying to be funny, way of insulting her.
�Where the hell did fucking Malcolm get a word like �demented�?� Sam laughed to himself. �TV,� came his minds reply.
�Idiots,� he muttered, �I am surrounded by idiots!�
�Nevertheless,� he thought quietly to himself, pursing his lips, �that�s small-town America- probably small-town anywhere.�
�Some consolation for her now,� Sam thought. �A country of humble-pie eaters. However, citizens had not been allowed to listen, had they? Unpatriotic was the word they had used. It had been such an easy word to use back then, for a pack of illiterate buffoons that were probably all dead now, anyway. What does any of it matter?�
Sam thought again about the enemy below him.
    It was horrifyingly true, now, what had been reported to them about these saurian egomaniacs. The reptilians had even gone out of their way, long before the TV went down, to pompously broadcast their coming victories, trying to rub noses in the fact that the governments of Earth had been out-foxed by their clever machinations.
�What was the ugly one�s name?� he stretched his mind, trying to recall. �Hell, they�re all ugly!�
�Sam?� Elly whispered. �Are you all right?�
Sam nodded and kissed her again, going right back to his thinking. It was all that he could do right now to keep sane.
�With CUSA government assistance,� Sam thought more, ��that was the only conceivable way that this could have happened,� he obsessed. �Since the last century, disasters, always in the shadow, but always with the CUSA stamp on them.�
Sam remembered the broadcast again, and the statement that had come from their leader; not a good picture, but his name, like Pinochet, or Hussein, or Hitler, was engraved on the minds of the populations that had heard it.
�Lord Bacillius,� was the creature that would be their king and ruler on Earth.
CUSA had not said anything at all before the recent shutdown of the communications in the US, and were all suspiciously quiet, and were nowhere in evidence-that it mattered, or that they could be of any help to stem the tide of these invading hoards.
�Nothing new in their silence, was there?� he thought, his anger at himself growing.
Enemy theirs had broadcast their message onto the TV sets of the world, telling the grisly details of the ease of their conquests, with an irritating, gloating arrogance, Sam remembered.
�Our new lords and masters, and they speak English too. How did they learn it? The arrogant bastards! They�ve revealed a monumental weakness in their rampant pride. The pride that blinds them.�
Elly had worried about her mate for the past half hour; he had begun muttering-quietly, but constantly, becoming louder. She had leaned back onto the rocky wall, listening to him, genuinely worried.
Sam was boiling over, and that kind of unsteadiness would give them away. She wondered if he had cracked under the strain; she felt he had. God knew she too felt the same. It was confusing trying to read him right now-a jumble of thinking radiated from Sam�s mind. His thoughts were like trying to read a crossword puzzle after the table has tipped over.
She took her mind off him for a minute and looked back down, shuddering to see the exaggerated motion of the aliens as they lumbered across the field, still shouting at each other.
They were massively built animals. Brawny, muscular bodies, devoid of grace. Leathery scales, claws, sharp long yellow teeth and vicious faces full of anger told her the story. What could any one expect in the way of mercy from these aliens? None at all-they were built and trained to kill without question.
Their bodies were a dull green color, like dried kelp. The soldiers wore helmets of some highly polished metal or plastic that looked like a big penis head.
�Kind of like the Nazi�s used,� Sam thought suddenly. He grew queasier with this memory. This did not bode well, but then, what did on this remarkable night of insanity?
Darkened breastplates, straps of red, criss-crossing their chests, over a tunic of gray, accompanied by a gun belt and a long dagger. The belt had bulges, which housed all manner of gadgets, he assumed. Their guns were ubiquitous-all types of weapons for control of the unruly humans.
He stopped to consider why they were not simply assuming power, why they were exterminating the humans of the Earth. There appeared to be only one answer: We were unnecessary, and in whatever way useless and probably more trouble than we were worth. In addition, there were seven billion humans, more than their combined forces, no doubt, but Sam really could not be sure of that.
The reptilians face housed slit, yellow-gold snake eyes that watched constantly, searching for any movement in their sectors.
A kind of frenzied motion had over taken the aliens in the last few minutes. A hard drum sound began hammering through the air, emanating from the troop ship parked below, along with a blaring trumpet, playing a crazy sounding, almost jazz figure, which moved the troops along to finish their work, and called others to assemble at certain areas.
They seemed involved in a group ceremony from the look of it. This went on for several minutes, and then ended; it began again. Relentlessly, the staccato arrangement whipped the soldiers into their work, completing whatever tasks that they had been trained to do.
Sam looked at Elly, rolling his eyes, and placing his fingers in his ears, and she followed suit, trying to block the sounds.
The troops roved around in arcs of a thousand feet or so, lowering their heads at the officers, newly on the scene, obsequious to their elevated presence among them. Clearly those of higher rank, strutting and indignant, they waved bizarre, cleaver-looking swords around their ill-proportioned headgear, replete with feathers; an odd affectation, Elly thought.
�Clowns,� Sam thought, �clowns with guns.�
Sam noticed that they did not, or would not go into the forest, and seemed oddly reticent to get close to the heavy trees, even though that would be the obvious place to look for their prey.
�Very strange, that,� Sam whispered to himself.

The fog thickened, billowing with subdued shades of grays and blues. Night filled in the overhead sky with a deep rich indigo thickness, a hint of the distant, thin stripe of sunset in clouds opening on the far waterline, slicing the horizon. It was compelling, and inviting to their fatigued minds.
The mists washed past them, occasionally blocking their view, and the low-silhouetted mountains in the distance disappeared. They must go soon; yet, those hills seemed very far away right at that moment.
The reptile patrols that they noticed seemed almost restrained at times, haltered. Again, the intuition of the alien�s insecurities gripped at Elly�s mind, and the colors that she perceived were perplexing to her. Their minds were hot, and cold.
The aliens carried testing equipment to the area, one flashing a deep violet light into the distance. Seeing that light approach and sweep by them, Sam and Elly stayed down when they saw any other lights coming their way, thinking them perhaps detection devices.
�If we could avoid them for another few hours �till they settle down� Sam thought, �we�d make it out of here and get away clean. Perhaps plan something with the others; there must be more of us, survivors out there somewhere.�
Elly looked at him, her thoughts telling him to avoid moving too quickly right then. He could hear her clearly, so he nodded. They would get away she assured him, for the Guides visions, when they had chosen to speak to her, had not shown her their capture and death. They had to do their part.
A vision appeared in her mind and she paused. Elly felt shocked with a sudden revelation, tuning her astral mind into another level of information that came with great strength, reminding her of her earlier insights.
She prayed to her teachers, asking for a miracle for the night, for survival. There were as many scenes shown to her as kept away, seemingly asking for her to choose from among them. She knew they would become clear, down the line. There was a bigger picture that she had been already shown by her Guides, years before, but it had been incomplete. She and Sam were not supposed to know everything, not just yet.
Just this morning, she remembered, along with other more disquieting thoughts, she had seen clear mental images of an unknown but oddly familiar looking child; a stranger to her, playing on a blanket set in a grassy field, with large stone buildings in the background�large dark trees.
There were other stranger people around the infant, in a mountainous area, somewhere far away; they were not California mountains, either. She remembered the child from somewhere that she could not place; a baby girl, so sweet, yet emanating a presence like nothing she had ever known. Future time? Past? Present?
�Who could it be?� she thought, for she had learned that all images had authenticity, in one way or another.
An unspoken confidence came to Elly when she remembered to not let her fears take her away, and to cling to the truth of this time, and of who she truly was, and would always be.
She was, after all, a spirit having this all too human experience, and not the other way around. There was life everywhere waiting for them to approach, she knew that much with certainty.
Elly drifted into a place of ultimate personal truth; she found herself almost beginning to resist the strong ego drive to stay physically alive any longer, laughing at her efforts, struggling with the honest response to an almost unbearable situation. The solution was there, fear holding sway over its implementation.
�Why suffer this way?� she found herself thinking. �There�s no reward in the effort, except some ill-defined spiritual growth. The door to heaven is open to everyone, even to these creatures in the field. Should it really matter if I were to die?�
She kissed Sam, and returned to her thinking. Her mate sensed a new element in her act, and looked at her for clarification.
�Living is complete imagination; an all too convincing game that we play with ourselves,� Elly thought. �I understand what is waiting for me each day, each moment, and I will no longer fear my time here; it is not acceptable.�
With a renewed surge of pleasure, Elly wiped away hot tears of frustration that had come.
Elly remembered the mysterious baby in the field again and inexplicably knew that she had to persevere. Another odd thought joined this, like tuning into another station, perhaps a message from her Guides.
Word around Trinidad said that there were paramilitary resistance units in the mountains around the area, hidden camps that had been set up, years ago. Everyone locally knew they were out there somewhere, and local hikers stayed some distance from their august company; they were reported as violent and paranoid in the extreme.
�It would certainly be good to locate them, even with the drawbacks,� she thought, �not such a daunting situation anymore, I think.�
With new determination, Elly turned to Sam, who was still intently studying the enemy. He doubted whether any resistance was worthwhile or imaginable, she knew. Elly wanted to talk to him, to tell him her thoughts, but knew that she should remain silent for a while longer.
Sam, distracted with his plans, wondered which direction that they should take to leave, as if they had much choice. He too had considered the paranoids; he thought that he knew, intuitively, where they must be camped; there were only a few good areas with water and access to town. He knew the local area well.
He noticed that the later it got the closer the beasts stayed to the landed craft and outbuildings that they had set up; not so big and brave, after all.
�It may become easier for us to get away,� he thought scratching his chin, and watching a tall reptilian, patrolling with a rifle across his chest, suddenly look up their way.
�Never mind. Searching the woods tonight is pointless; we�ll find them, eventually. But God, please make it soon!� he thought, feeling no real confidence, and wondering who would find them first?
Lights twinkled in the haze, a beauty within the beastly situation. Great patches of night sky and stars suddenly opened above their heads, the haze parting, renewing hope.

More pulsing metallic sounds of heavy machinery whined; snapping sounds, and a few of the enemy�s smaller ships streaked over their position again, emitting an unearthly shriek that made their skin crawl.
Elly prayed, sending out good intent to all the spirits near them.
Sam forced his mind to concentrate on ideas that were positively going to get them out of there, but there was only one that made sense.
�Run�run fast!�
He laughed a bit at himself, and seemed to be at a loss about what could possibly, right now, prove to be positive, or in any way uplifting, beyond simply staying alive. He looked at Elly and he realized that he was wrong.
That was the exact moment that he remembered her engagement ring. The whole reason for today!
�Good god, yes!� he thought excitedly. Sam took the diamond out of his pocket, glad to see it safe, and turned to Elly, his eyes wide with as big a smile as he could muster, nodding his head to get her attention.
He searched her questioning eyes as he kissed her deeply, deftly slipping the sparkling diamond onto her finger, whispering, �I Love You.�
His face lit up while watching her reaction. Her mouth hung open at the sudden activity.
�There,� he thought with a small contentment, �that�s better. There is one beautiful thing to remember about today, for certain.�
Elly was startled; she felt awkward as he had grabbed at her in the dark, not understanding what he was doing, until she saw the diamond, sparkling in the low light. It was a messenger of hope renewed to her mind.
A perfect stone, it was split with light of all colors, catching rays that emanated from the aliens encampment. There was another message in this; that even in the midst of utter demoralization, hope does spring eternal.
All that Elly could think to do was to try and hold back her tears, when what she wanted to do was scream and cry and squeeze him close, nodding her head in an enthusiastic, �Yes, yes, yes!�
They dissolved into quiet tears and smiles, and lay down with great warm hugs and deep long kisses. They had not lost their home, after all. They had each other and that would always mean happiness and safety. After a time, they fell into a light slumber.

An hour later, waking, they heard more of the angry, loud alien voices.
There were human ones too, and they were sounds that they had known for years; they were certain this time that they were town people, many wracked with pain, lamenting their lives and unwarranted fate.
Troubled, disbelieving voices came; confused, frightened, they were filled with unspeakable terror that drifted to them in the night.
Elongated black shadows smeared across the darkened field, haloed with low watt illuminations, and the night breeze carried beleaguered emotions to them; they were reluctant witnesses to this horrible night�s culmination, and the comfort of their engagement vanished.
Voices choked and cried; more screams and shouts came to them from men, women and children until they thought they would die themselves from the agony that they felt for the unfortunate victims. The cacophonous, hazy air, signaled a large group movement, indicating hundreds of people moving in the night, soaked in fear.
The sudden unintelligible shout and grunt of the creature soldiers overwhelmed the desperate cries for help that would never come. The reptilian guards roared over the human voices, drowning them out, shutting them up, some shot down instantly in their rage. Sam recoiled at what his imagination spoke, and Elly choked back her anguished sobbing.
Sounds came of hard, hammer blows on flesh, of skull bone and arms breaking, mixed with desperate cries of disbelief and agony, all of this came to the hillside. Deep thuds sounded muffled and bodies collapsed to the earth in the stilled night air.
From beyond the dull mists separating them from the carnage, a deafening, belching massive blast of orange-yellow light suddenly lit up the eerie scene below them, amid stronger final cries and shrieks of disbelief. It went on for minutes.
Then thankfully, nothing more: It was ended.
Nothing further came, save a resounding echo of humanity�s voice, extinguished as a candle in a storm.