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Episode 44

PARTS 1 – 10

PART 1

As they approached the farmhouse both Joseph and Martin were surprised to see Mary had already arrived at the farm, and even further surprised to see that there was someone else waiting with her.

“I hope this won’t mean trouble.”   Martin mumbled gruffly as he pulled the car to a stop not too far from where Mary’s car was parked,   “How are we going to handle this?  We certainly haven’t got a lot of time for civilities at the moment.   And if he is the police … Well, how are we going to proceed?”

“Don’t fret so, Martin.”   Joseph replied with a hint of cynicism,   “He could be anybody … and whoever he is, we’ll stick to our story and agenda regardless.   After all, we do have some legitimacy to be here.  All we need to say is the truth – we are here to collect Rosetta’s father’s personal effects.   It’s not a roped off area … it is not being treated as a crime scene, or isn’t as far as we are aware.   In fact I doubt that the Trenthamville police even care what happened here at the farm.   The fact that they failed to ensure the fire was fully extinguished leads me to thinking that way.   I have no idea what their agenda may be, they may even be witches themselves for all I know.    And if that is the case, then we certainly don’t want to elaborate on just what it is that we are collecting … or at least what we are trying to collect; an ancient gold statue representing some implausible supernatural being that wants to take over our world.   As far as this stranger is concerned we are just collecting personal items and anything else that we think the Professor would want to be in a safe environment.  I’d much prefer not to be discussing the possibility of dead witches still smouldering on the carpet, or creatures from space and their followers.   In fact, I would prefer to push those thoughts out of my mind permanently, find this stupid statue, and get back to London as fast as I can.”

The hardly subtle bitterness in Joseph’s words was not lost to Martin’s ears.   He looked hard at his friend and wondered just how disillusioned Joseph was becoming with this case.   Not that he could blame him.   The events that seemed to be taking place around them were certainly nothing like anything he himself had encountered before … and he had had some strange situations to deal with over the years.   “I take it that we aren’t going to mention that we have less than forty eight or so hours to save the world either?”   He asked in a half-hearted attempt to lighten the mood, but Joseph ignored his question and Martin decided that it would be more prudent to drop the subject for the moment.   He would find time later to check on Joseph’s true feelings on completing their task; at the moment all he could do was observe and hope.

The two men got out of the car and walked over to where Mary was waiting, and as they did Mary moved quickly towards them, clasping her hands around Joseph’s wrists the minute she was close enough to do so.

“I’m sorry to hear about your friend Rosetta.”  Mary said softly,   “The hotel manager mentioned her condition as I was leaving the hotel.  He said that she had been taken ill and the doctor had been called in.   And he also said that she was in a comatose state.   Will she be all right?”

“Yes,” Joseph replied,   “The doctor said she should recover in a day or so.  Let’s hope that he is right.”

Suddenly, an extremely bright light silently, momentarily, exploded out of the ground behind where Joseph was standing facing the small group.   A light so brilliant it could have blinded them all for some time afterwards should they have been looking directly at it.   But they were all saved from that fate by the unexpected distraction that had occurred beneath their feet a millisecond beforehand, all, that is, with the exception of the stranger whose eyes managed  to take in the entire blast.   For the others, a loud, rumble erupted from within the ground below and dispensed itself into their ears, and the accompanying vibrations arrived so violently Mary lost her balance and fell so heavily into Joseph’s chest she threatened to take him down with her.    Joseph, however, somehow managed to retain his balance and pulled her in even closer to his body to help her settle down.   But while Joseph was wrestling with Mary his eyes were distracted from the images of the three people that faced him, and so he failed to see the flicker of transformation that rolled across the stranger’s eyes; an extraordinarily fast transmutation of colour from sky blue to a glazed, diluted, version of itself.  Then in an instant changing to a vibrant red, before becoming the darkest black, then yellow … and then back to its original colour again.   But he did, momentarily, feel the strange electrical tickle that emitted from the stranger pointed finger to his left hand.   Not a painful or a burning shock as would happen if he touched pure electricity, simply a sensation that for far less than a second ran from his hands, upward through his body, and ended in his brain; an occurrence that took place so quickly it had completed its mission without his even having had time to be certain that he really had felt something in the first place.

“Oh, I am sorry, Joseph.   That is the second shock in the past few minutes that we have felt, only this time it was worse.  The last one happened not long before I saw you and Martin coming down the driveway.   Thank you for saving me.  Did I hurt you?   I felt that I fell very heavy for you … on you.”  Mary asked as she looked deep into his eyes, a slight coy smile in her eyes at her gaffe.

“No.   I am fine, thank you, Mary.”   Joseph found himself unable to fully relax in the position that were currently in, however, his body and mind seemed not quite willing to relinquish it just yet.

“I hope not, Joseph; to hurt you would be the last thing that I would ever want to do.”   Her head cocked coyly to one side; her large, soft blue eyes perfect for the image she wished to present to Joseph, Mary began to release her grip on his hands, and slowly, wistfully, move away from him.   The longish nails on her carefully manicured fingers, now extended to their fullest, moved sensually over the palm of his open hand, taking extremely slow steps backwards to ensure the moment was not lost prematurely.    And as she moved she did not take her eyes off him – not even for a split second.   Then, when she got to a point where both their arms were at full stretch, where only the tips of their fingers still touched, in one smooth, unhurried motion, her grip around his wrists was suddenly firmly re-established … and Joseph found himself pulling her in so close to him their faces were but inches from physical contact.   Joseph was feeling both happy and settled, and uncomfortable and confused at the same time.   But when Mary spoke again; spoke in that soft, soothing tone, Joseph could feel his mind and emotions drifting at an ever increasing speed towards the former.

“I am so glad that I ran into you down here in Trenthamville.”    Her composure was soft, happy; confident of reciprocation to the words she spoke,   “I don’t think that I have ever felt as I do right at this very moment.   I am so very, very happy how this trip has turned out; Happy that I am getting to know you so very well, sweet Joseph … so very, very happy in my life.    You do know that you and I could be as one … now that Rosetta has gone from your life.  Would you like that?”

Despite his current mood; Despite his reason for being at the farm, and despite the difficulty he was now having in dealing with the situation he had once considered fortuitous to have found himself in, Joseph now found a sudden sense of comfort, of security, enshrouding him, and it all seemed to be generating from Mary’s presence.

Joseph began to feel impervious to his worries and decided that it was time to re-approach his current view to life.   He began to feel dreamy and it felt comfortable, very comfortable.   ‘Mary could replace Rosetta in my life’. He began to realise, ‘Then all would be well again’.   Her presence in my world would rekindle the urge to finish the job.   I could, no … I would … no, I will continue to search for the statue.   She will give me the inspiration to succeed, and succeed I will.  Oh, this is so wonderful.   For her I would give my life in pursuit of her requirement for success.’

But as Joseph’s seduced mind began to process this new, magnificent world that was opening up before him, for no apparent reason, his eyes began to glaze.  Mary suddenly began to blur in his vision and he shook his head to regain focus.   ‘Where is she?’   He asked himself as sweat began pouring from his neck and from under his arms.   He could feel his heart beating wildly, and panic begun to encompass him to the point that he began to shake – when suddenly he saw her.   ‘Oh yes, there she is, pretty and reliable as ever … and smiling.’ he exclaimed in relief to no one in particular,   ‘That is right.  Mary is always smiling.   She is such a pleasure to behold; she makes me feel so safe.   Sooooooooooo safe.’

However, no sooner had Joseph rediscovered her presence, when Mary’s face began to blur again.   Red smoke began to fill the space she had occupied, and once again Joseph’s world was one of indescribable panic.

‘No!‘  His voice screamed through his head, but it was no use … she had gone.

The seconds ticked by and all Joseph could see before him was red dust, or smoke, or whatever it was that completely blocked his vision.   Joseph had no idea what it was he saw, but he was certain that it was red.   His ability to smell was no longer functioning, his hearing was gone, and his vision impaired.   And he could not move a muscle.   All he could do was to stare blankly at the redness that confronted him.   And then to make matters worse, Joseph was feeling dizzy and was absolutely certain that he was about to pass out.   His eyes began to close, and he could feel his body trembling as he began to fall, but his head suddenly jerked forward and his eyes snapped wide open, and once again he was staring into a red fog.   And in the fog his befuddled mind thought it saw the shape of a large face, with eyes that … that …, but it was gone so fast he knew he must have imagined it.   Then the dizziness returned, as did the closing of the eyes and the trembling as his knees began to buckle under him again.   Then again his head rolled forward, again his eyes snapped open and the redness of his surroundings returned to his vision.   Something buried deep in Joseph’s memory cave awoke and Joseph realised that whatever was going on, he was automatically trying to resist it … and that gave him the strength to join in and fight whatever was attacking his senses.   He snapped his eyes shut and squeezed them as hard as his mind would allow him, while at the same time he ordered his mind to free itself from whatever was trying to control it.   The sudden cavalcade of light that began flashing inside his head assured him that there was a battle of sorts taking place for control, but it was not a battle that he knew how to fight.   Everything he was doing was based purely on new found instincts as they came into his head.

   SUDDENLY HIS EYES FLEW OPEN.   THE FOG HAD GONE.    MARY WAS BACK … and then she was gone again.   Joseph began to feel his mind slipping away into oblivion as the image of Mary seemed to continually fade in and out of his vision.    Then his nightmare stopped as Mary stabilised before his eyes.  She WAS back.  ‘Yes! Yes Yes!   He screamed silently, “She IS back!  

And as he screamed for joy within the confines of his mind, Mary began moving towards him once again, her arms outstretched, the smile on her face growing stronger by the second.   She was welcoming him into her arms to comfort him – and the way that Joseph’s mind was feeling at the moment made that action the most beautiful thing that she could ever do to cement their new found love.   He raised his arms as a smile began to charge across his face and their bodies entwined.   Mary slowly, seductively, began to part her lips, moistening them with the tip of her tongue … then she gently placed her hands behind the back of his neck and began to draw him closer, silently inviting him to join with her.   Joseph was now beside himself with happiness.   Ecstasy was waiting and he could feel his heart beating wildly with joy.   But in the very same second, remorse for his disloyalty to Rosetta suddenly took priority over his thoughts.   Joseph knew immediately that what he was doing to Rosetta was not right, especially in the current circumstances.   But Mary was so wanting to protect him, to shower him with love … how could he refuse her offer?   Then Joseph’s heart began to beat so wildly he thought he was about to die as Mary’s face and body once again dissolved back into the fog, but to Joseph’s surprise …  when it cleared, instead of Mary standing in front of him … it was Rosetta that his eyes took in.

Rosetta.   Beautiful, beautiful, Rosetta.   But she was not beautiful today.   Her eyes were black, so very dark and lifeless.    And sunken, so very, very sunken they brought tears to his eyes.   Then the tears began to slowly trickle down her face.     And then they flowed quicker and quicker, but they weren’t tears of salty water … they were tears of BLOOD that began to cover her entire face.!   Joseph could not believe his eyes, could not bring himself to see his beloved Rosetta in this state and closed his eyes in protest.   And it worked, for when he opened them again he was back in Mary’s arms and she drew him in closer and closer, their lips now but a breath away from touching.    Joseph found himself totally succumbing to the charms of this beguiling woman and he was now ready to give his soul should it prove to be necessary to have her by his side forever.

Joseph closed his eyes, relaxed his mind, and succumbed to the final physical forward movement to let his lips and heart be totally consumed by the passion and love that was on offer.    “Mary,” he whispered softly, as he could all but taste the first layer of her waiting lips, “Oh my sweet, sweet, Mary.”   Joseph cupped his hands around the back of her head to gently pull her forward for their lips to join, and ecstasy to begin.   But before the final contact could be made, Joseph found himself in an embarrassing situation.   Before he could feel the pleasure of their first kiss that he was now hurting for, he was forced to pull back from her arms.   His throat had suddenly gone dry; the dryness made him cough.   His nose began to fill with an odour seemingly comprised of sulpher, and other chemicals equally as obnoxious to his senses.   He had no idea what was going on, but it was choking him and he could do nothing but cough and cough.  Eventually, when his body finally allowed itself to return control of itself to him, he once again opened his eyes, but he could not make any sense of what he now saw.

The deep red fog had returned, but it was now swirling savagely in all directions, yet there seemed to be no wind or breeze to create this bizarre phenomenon.   It reminded Joseph of something; a momentarily forgotten memory that still managed to send a cold shiver down his spine, but for the moment he could not make it come any clearer in his mind.   However, ever so slowly, the fog began to evaporate; within a few more seconds it disappeared completely, leaving Joseph with an even bigger mystery to absorb.

Mary was back, but she was now standing some fifty, perhaps seventy yards, perhaps even one hundred yards away from him.   Then, to Joseph’s surprise, he realised that there was now somebody standing between him and Mary; standing only two or three feet in front of her.   And whoever it was, they were facing Mary, their back to Joseph, while Martin was talking to the stranger who was standing at Mary’s side.

Then Joseph’s jaw dropped and his mind really began to freak out when he realised that the person whose back he could see standing in front of Mary all that distance away … was HIMSELF!

*******

EPISODE 48

PART 2

Joseph was gobsmacked when he realised that he was somehow staring at his own back from a distance.   It didn’t make sense to him, but before he could attempt to solve the problem he was unexpectedly distracted; his attention suddenly diverted to a flashing red and gold glow moving at an unnatural speed across the heavens; not slowly, not fast, but certainly at a noticeable speed.   An eerily abnormal light, pulsating within the confines of a small, dark environment … and as it moved ever closer Joseph could see that the light was a series of energy blasts encased in a grey covering somewhat similar to a storm cloud, only slightly different; something more sinister.   It was not a visual sighting that made it seem different to Joseph, it was more of a sensory reaction to what he could feel emitting from it, something that was setting his nerves on edge.   Suddenly it stopped directly above where the small group were standing – and within a split second it began screaming downwards, unmistakably heading towards his double and his friends.   The storm like clouds, with the permanent display of electric discharges within, was causing dark shadows around the small group as it approached at an ever increasing speed.   Yet they seemed oblivious to its presence.   Joseph tried to yell out a warning to them, but he was too far away for them to hear him.   He was fast becoming panic stricken.   He could see their eminent death approaching, but he could not warn them.   His mind so close to breaking point that it was not even dawning on him that his demise was included should the thing make contact with them.    He knew not how the thing would kill them, but every instinct in his body assured him that death was theirs within thirty seconds or less.   Courage alone gave him the sudden decision to run towards them.  To somehow arrive just in time to force them to move out of harm’s way, but when he tried to run – he found that to be impossibility.    For whatever reason, Joseph could not lift a foot, never mind run.   And, it was in this instant, that Joseph finally realised that he too was most likely to pass off this mortal coil, either from where he is currently standing observing the ongoing events, or where he can see himself standing in front of Mary.   He knew at this very moment that all he can do is wonder why it was so that his life came to an end in such a strange and unusual way.

Accepting the fact that he had only seconds of his life on Planet Earth remaining, Joseph stared warmly at his two friends and then let his mind drift off to Rosetta and let it caress her beautiful young face with his eyes as she lay sleeping in her coma … apologising to her for his strange, appalling, behaviour with Mary a few moments earlier.   And as his eyes gazed down upon Rosetta for the last time he could hear the ground that housed his other self and his friends being blasted to smithereens by the force of the impact of the bolts of pure power that were being thrown down upon them; the noise so loud Joseph automatically turned his head back to where he and his friends had appeared a minute earlier, but there was nothing there.    Whatever had actually happened was forever lost to his eyes; completely melded with the flames and red and yellow dust that had already begun to cover them beyond sight.  And it was at this stage Joseph’s heart and mind reached zero hour; zero hour where he finally remembered where he had seen the red smoke that engulfed all before his eyes.   And he immediately recognised the evil, obnoxious, thing that had accompanied it in the ceiling of the garage as it began once again to materalise before his eyes, hovering above the scene of its latest carnage.

The Punjaniti!

********

Episode 48

PART 3

And Joseph once again found himself screaming silently in absolute terror as his heart beat so wildly it threatened to kill him on the spot, and the thing that frightened him the most was not just the creature itself, but the rage that covered the face of this hideous creature as it pounded its fists into the ground over and over again in the spot where his image had been standing a minute or so earlier.   The huge reptilian like fists pounding so hard into the ground Joseph could feel the thick soil shaking beneath his feet even from the distance where he stood.    Suddenly the creature, its fists still embedded in the holes in the ground it was creating in its anger, went down on its knees and raised the upper half of his body high in the air, and in the same action he spun his head in the direction where Joseph was now standing.   The creature stared in Joseph’s direction for several seconds, his cold, dark eyes reeking of uncertainty, while Joseph found himself shaking in absolute terror, having no idea where he could run to, if that was at all possible.   Then in the twinkling of a second, everything clicked in for the creature.   Without warning the colour of the creature’s eyes burst out in savage red and yellow flame, its mouth opened wider than seemed possible, and the huge half-man, half-creature screamed a scream that made every muscle in Joseph’s body turn to jelly.   Joseph may have, for just a moment, felt that he had escaped death, survived the horror that had taken the others, but he now knew that this time there would be no escape.   The gut wrenching sound that escaped from the huge creature’s throat opened every single pore on Joseph’s body, but he was so petrified with fear he had no idea that his clothes were now wringing wet.   The uncontrolled sweat burnt his eyes, blurred his vision; blurred it to the point where he could barely notice the changing scene that was taking place before him.   He could not see his friends anymore, lost in the fire-red and blue tinged cloud of colour that now monopolised the area where they had once stood … nor had his eyes taken in what had happened to them.   And it is more than possible that what had happened to them would have been enough to topple his sanity at that very moment of time had he have been able to witness the attack first hand, rather than simply feel it happen through the vibrations the energy ball blasts had created.   Joseph had been too occupied in his thoughts about Rosetta to have done anything but give her what he knew would be the last second of his life.   And in doing so he had denied himself the horror of seeing the death of his friends, though he was thoroughly amazed to find himself still to be alive.  By the time he had turned his eyes back to his friends there had been nothing to be seen.

‘But for how long?’ he wondered, ‘how long will I live now that it has found me.’  And he was right … the creature had found him.   Joseph watched in absolute amazement as the massive creature lifted its massive body off the ground and into the air as if it was but a leaf in a hurricane – then, in complete contrast to its initial movement, the huge, bulky, mass drifted through the air towards him at the speed of a one legged snail, and every agonising second tore at Joseph’s mind and sanity.

Until this very second in time, unbeknownst to Rosetta and Martin, Joseph had done his utmost to deny himself the existence of anything paranormal going on in the village or here on this farm, even though everything continually pointed to his being wrong.   For every piece of adventure and adrenaline he had garnished from what he had wanted to believe in since he first met Rosetta, reason and reality had always eventually questioned the truth of the day’s events when he was alone in his ‘me’ time; when the pressure of pleasing and appeasing others with agreement were not present, the supernatural aspect was denied.   For some strange reason a singular part of his mind took it upon itself to come up with a reasonable explanation of what, in fact, had taken place in every case … without once accepting the supernatural aspect on offer.   And it did its job with unerring aplomb.   This obstinate part of his mind continually convinced him for certain, that in reality there were no such things as werewolves or vampires, no strange alien creatures that could fly freely through space, or secret cults that worshipped them … and so Joseph dismissed the original impact each strange action had originally had on him and allowed his mind to accept the more plausible offering.

Mind you, this had not been what Joseph had wanted to hear or accept.   Joseph had been smitten with both Rosetta, and the tale she had told, from the very beginning … and he had wanted so much for the entire story to be true and him to be part of it; to be the hero in her eyes.   He had been willing to believe anything offered to him by way of an explanation to an unusual and strange event that had taken place in order to appease his own wants.   But, when he was alone in his thoughts his mind would always conjure up a more reasonable explanation for what he had seen; what he had been told.   And his mind would always find rational answers to deny the existence of the Punjaniti and the Punjani.   However, in the bona fide land of reality, as time passed by, things had gotten out of hand for him, especially after he and Rosetta had been attacked.   Joseph now admitted to himself that he had gotten himself into something far deeper than he knew how to handle and it confused him … and it worried him because he knew that it had to be connected to their search for the statue.   And if that was the case – then it begged the question of how much of the purported supernatural overtone to this case really was a reality, a reality that could not be dismissed regardless of the thoughts of his one track mind.  If the statue was real, then there was every probability that the Punjaniti did exist.   And if it did exist, then … .

This was why he had been so snappy with Martin after their visit to the garage.   As he and Martin had driven towards the farm Joseph had reflected on the preceding events that had confronted him in the garage only minutes earlier,  and he could not believe that he had seen what he had seen in the workshop without his mind considering that he was possibly going insane.   But at the time that it had first happened his mind had had the gall to take it all in its stride.   At that point in time his mind accepted the facts as it saw them; strange things were taking place before his eyes; stranger things still when a hideous monster arrived and tried to kill him – end of discussion.   But now, as usual, long after the event, his mind was already beginning to find acceptable rational excuses for all that had happened over the past night and this morning.   To Joseph’s way of thinking, it was this obsessive compulsion of his brain to find alternative explanations for virtually everything that was taking place in his new life that was frustrating him beyond his ability to cope.  However, it was the attack that had taken place in Rosetta’s room had unsettled him the most, not because they had been attacked, but by the fact that they had been attacked; A planned attack.   Why?   Why were they attacked?    ‘There are a lot of things taking place around us in Trenthamville’, Joseph reasoned, ‘but to be attacked was an incredibly serious business.   It made everything that was going on in the background seem equally as serious … and so dangerous.   And it made everything feel so real, and yet surreal at the same time.  It may just have been meant to frighten them off, but off what?   What were they after … and why go about it the way that they did?   And why place Rosetta in a coma?   Why ever did they do that?’  By the time that Joseph had reached the farm his thoughts were questioning every single thing that had happened to him since he met Rosetta and heard her story, and when his mind finished thinking, it knew that he was suffering from a mental problem and needed help urgently.   Then Joseph began to wonder if perhaps both Rosetta and Martin were also afflicted by the same strain of hallucinatory virus that had clouded over his mind on a regular basis over the last couple of days.   Perhaps he had caught it from them, he wondered?   Joseph took a deep breath, held it for a minute, then closed his eyes and slowly released the air from his lungs in the form of a long and exasperated sigh.

********

EPISODE 48

PART 4

The air released, the action completed, the exasperation of the moment assumedly released, Joseph opened his eyes, and instantly regretted his decision as his eyes once again took in the sight of the huge creature as it continued its irritatingly slow journey towards him.   But the sight of this obnoxious beast was now forcing Joseph to take stock of his thoughts … and to admit that there were some things that couldn’t be explained quite so easily as a hallucination or a trick of the light.    And it was not only what he saw at the moment that worried him; it was everything that was happening to him at this very moment.   Perhaps everything that he had seen, heard, and witnessed over the past few days were not signs of madness; perhaps, in truth, they were actualities.   Perhaps there really were things that could only be explained as being exactly what they seemed to be – no matter how irrational the suggestion seemed at the time.  This creature that was heading toward him looked real; frightened the life out of him, and had even killed his friends.   Yet the creature had attacked him several times now, but it hadn’t killed him yet … so it couldn’t be real, could it?   But there it was coming straight at him never-the less.  It had to be his imagination at work … or was somebody or something protecting him?   ‘Oh, god!   I have no idea whether I should be laughing, or being committed,’   Joseph noted without expecting an answer, ‘It does appear, however, that there are things not of the ordinary that do take place.  It is either that, or I have already reached the point of madness.   Perhaps it is a sign of the truth of the matter either way?   Maybe I am already insane.   Or perhaps the Punjaniti does exist … and he want’s to kill me … but why?   Whichever way it goes I still end up with a massive problem … I either will get committed to an asylum, or the beast will kill me.’

********

Joseph looked upwards towards the slow moving creature as it made its way towards him.   It looked real enough, but the slowness of its movements confused him.   He was certain that this strange, demonic, creature was trying to attack him, but he could not understand why it was taking so long to do so.   Then a thought crossed his mind.  ‘It is like it can’t see me.   Like it knows that I am here somewhere and it is searching for me, but somehow I am invisible to it.   Perhaps I have a chance after all.’ he wondered with all the hope he could muster. “I wonder what would happen if I willed him away?  Oh, god … I am going crazy.   Wherever did that thought come from?  Like, as if.  What what I do?   Pull out my Harry Potter wand, wave it around the air and then yell out ‘Vamooso Punjaniti!”   God, how is this day going to end up?   With me dead, surviving, or simply waking up from a long nightmare? “

For Joseph, after what he had seen this morning, there was becoming too much of a blur between the possible and the impossible for him to deal with; everything was telling him that he had to believe, believe that Punjaniti existed, that the Punjani were real, and there was a missing statue.   He was to believe that what he was going through at the moment was real, not a hallucination.   But if he did so, then this meant that there was every possibility he was about to die.   The creature had sought him out personally, and now it had found him.   The strange events that had preceded this moment were, in fact, events that had really taken place.   He could no longer deny their existence.   The witches, the tales, the Punjani, and the Punjaniti itself all existed.   And now he, himself, had become the centre piece of the next chapter.

Joseph could feel his entire mind and body travelling on a fast train to meltdown as he stared up as much in fascination, as in horror, at the sight of the horrendous monster that stared down in search of him; seemingly, with pure hatred in its eyes.   For an eternity the creature seemed to simply hover menacingly above him, the gigantic wings beating just fast enough to keep itself airborne, but not fast enough to stir the dust that lay on the ground beneath it … and the stench.   The vile smell of rotting dead that emitted from the creature was almost enough to kill Joseph in its own right.    ‘But why was he not attacking?’   Joseph wondered almost in anger at the slow pace of imminent death, ‘Attacked and put out of my misery.’   Joseph felt it was as if the creature wanted to savour every moment of the fear and torture he could inflict upon him, and it was succeeding admirably.

And then, out of nowhere, a grey cloud appeared in Joseph’s vision, a twisting, shifting cloud that began to dissipate almost as soon as it arrived – revealing in its place the same feeling that had occurred at the garage; the feeling of hatred that the creature seemed to have for him.   Joseph truly believed that the creature seemed to have a hatred for him that was bordering on paranoia.   ‘There is no way that isn’t a bit strange.’  Joseph screamed in silence to the belligerent part of his mind that continually caused him so much discontent with its eternal need to ignore the existence of the twilight zone and its inhabitants,   ‘This is twice in as many hours that I have been involved with a visit from this creature; this creature that others refer to as the Punjaniti.   Twice today I have seen him, and twice today he has tried to kill me … and the vision is always coupled with feelings of pleasure and malice in its intent, and the pure hatred of my existence always emits from the creature …    Wake up to yourself, brain.   The Punjaniti exists … and so does the statue.   Rosetta and her father need me to be both sane and reliable, and I will have neither of those assets if I have to listen to you venturing into uncharted waters and offering your untested and ill-informed opinion every five minutes.   There is something going on in my life at the moment that is well and truly out of my hands, and yours too – for that matter.   For some reason, as yet unknown, I have been recruited to help out in their moment of need … and damn it all, that is what I am going to do!   Back off brain and move into the right frame of mind to do battle at my side, and not interfere in things that don’t concern you.   We are in a battle where we have little understanding of what is happening, or where we fit in.   But if we are going to continue to survive we must believe that we are already being guided in some form or other – and our reflexes will kick in when they are required providing we are not continually questioning everything that happens to the one hundredth degree.   What we need to do is analyse what we have learnt so far and open our minds a little further to allow us to really see what we have in front of us … not what we think that we see.   Let us think a little out of the square, and let us allow what we are being shown to reveal itself, rather than us always trying to force answers out of everything we come across.  Then, and only then, will we get the answers that we need to survive … and win.’

Joseph felt in a happy place getting his words out and admitting to himself that the biggest problem he had been facing since he began this mission was trying to accept that he was involved in something different.   To say that he had become infatuated with Rosetta was an understatement of truth, and for her to show reciprocation to his thoughts and wishes blew his mind.   But, at the same time, he was racked by guilt in the unorthodox way he had managed to infiltrate her trust.   And it was the guilt that confounded him; that placed him at risk.   Joseph had surprised himself with the way he had adapted to the strange environment he had now found himself in.   His thoughts in a variety of unusual situations had seemed to have come from nowhere, and most of them had proved correct; things such as the testing of the assumption that the embers in the farmhouse were somehow still active; and possibly controlled by a source or power that was not visible.  Of course, the chicken wasn’t happy at being at the pointy end of a scientific experiment, but, now, Joseph was feeling pretty apathetic about it as well when he realised he had failed to gain anything useful from his action … he had been too wrapped up in the fact that he had been proved to be right, than to concern himself with how he had managed come up with the thought in the first place.   He felt now that he should have attempted to work out why it worked the way that it did, not just accept it and give himself a big pat on the back simply because he had had a brainwave.   In the end he had proved nothing … except maybe his immaturity to the chicken.  Now, in hindsight, he realised that he should have been more worried about what sort of mind had the power to release such a force.   If the Punjaniti had been his prime suspect, regardless of whether or not he actually believed it existed, he should have taken steps to learn more about it.   Much more than the diary had been providing.   Now he realised that he had had ways and means of checking out things that needed to be checked out; Google for one, Martin for another.   Martin was what he thought Joseph to be, and Martin really did have contacts that could have been utilised in order to help them in their quest.   Joseph now realised that because he was only pretending to be whatever Martin really was, his own lies had worried him, and he had concerned himself too much with being caught out, rather than to use the situation to gain answers.

Joseph was learning now to accept the fact that it was not his lies that had taken him so far into the world that he, Martin and Rosetta were currently trapped in, but someone or something else.   He had been selected to perform a special task; he had been asked to help Rosetta and Martin locate the statue, and it would seem that he had agreed to the request.  It mattered not why or how he had been chosen, it was not all about him; the only thing that did matter was that he did what was requested of him – to find the statue.  This, he agreed, was what he must do, and will do

And now, Joseph decided, if whatever it was that he had gotten himself into was preordained, then there would be some rules to follow.   Much as he would prefer to have a one-on-one conversation with whoever was in charge of all these weird happenings, he doubted that was likely to happen in the short term.    All he could do at the moment was wander erratically through life, and learn the rules as he began to understand them for what they were.   Joseph was now certain that what he needed to know would come to him in time for him to deal with it, and he believed that thought as much as he believed for certain that this was already happening.  Everything suddenly seemed to be getting better.   He still did not fully understand what the creature and he had in common, nor did he fully understand the games that seemed to be taking place between his own sanity and the creature’s unexpected arrivals, but, for the moment at least, he felt he could cope.   He would devote his thoughts to locating the statue and releasing Rosetta and her father from their comatose condition, and as far as the creature was concerned … he would have to take each arrival of the hideous, foul smelling beast as they came.  Joseph took a deep breath, exhaled and slowly raised his head to the heavens … and his waiting nemesis.

And as Joseph stared sullenly at the thing that he now knew he would shortly do battle with – once he learnt how to, that was, a sound emerged so loud it made the ground beneath his feet vibrate.   Joseph was confused for a moment, and when he looked up at the source of the noise it didn’t make a lot of sense.   The creature was beating its wings as hard as possible as it hovered over his head; beating them so hard all Joseph could see before his eyes was the dust that was rising higher and higher from the ground below.   It was the dust equivalent of a volcano erupting and it took Joseph every ounce of strength he could muster to prevent himself from falling to the ground from the vibrations … yet there seemed not a speck of dust falling on him.   For some strange reason the area for around three metres all the way around him was as clear as a bell, while the dust elsewhere was getting thicker and thicker.   Then Joseph heard the roar of frustration and hatred from the creature … and as he looked upwards towards the embittered being he was convinced that his last seconds of life had finally arrived after all, as the creature’s huge body abruptly crashed straight down towards his waiting body at the speed of light – then there was nnothing.

********

EPISODE 48

PART 5

“Did you hear that?   Mary asked in surprise at the muffled boom that had caused all four of them to rock gently on their feet for a few seconds.   “What was that … an earthquake?   It wasn’t like the last ones.   They sounded more like a giant playing bongo drums, or burping … and this one was a lot louder than that.   It was almost like a giant bird flapping its wings in slow motion.   It seemed to come from over that way.   Ooooh, what is that awful smell?”

“There certainly has been plenty of noise coming out of the ground this morning.”  The stranger offered,   “Mind you, there are always a lot of strange things that take place on this farm, but I believe that I know where these sounds are originating from.    There are caves beneath this part of the farm and I think that occasionally some of a cave simply collapses as a result of subsidence occurring beneath them   There was quite a storm a few days ago and I think that when that occurs there is a lot of water that runs into the caves that becomes trapped there until it finally soaks into the ground.   Over a period of time areas of the ground beneath the caves becomes soft and cannot support the wall.   Eventually cracks will appear in a cave wall and it will partially collapse.   Scientific research suggests that there are a nest of caves and tunnels under the farm and when one collapses the noise has various outlets to travel along before it escapes which is how we hear them.

“Caves?   Under the farm?   How did they work that out?”    Martin asked as he looked around the lush growth of long grass and weeds that covered the now unused soil.

“Do you see those houses down at the bottom of the farm?”   Harvey asked, pointing a finger to guide them to where the houses were.   “Well, that is where I live, have done all my life.   My family has lived there for generations, one of the first families to occupy the houses.   My family go back well past Lord Trentham’s rule, but it was he that arranged for the houses to be built, so he’s not ever forgotten here in the village.   The legends* say he was the best squire to ever rule over this part of the countryside.   Mind you, the legend also says he met with a strange fate, but that is another story*.   Anyway, I am diverting.    A long time ago, long before the road was bituminised, when the land down the bottom of the farm was allocated for housing for the farm workers and their families by Lord Trentham and building began, a couple of sinkholes appeared on this side of the boundary line during construction.   Nobody was hurt, but they discovered relics from tens, perhaps hundreds of thousands of years ago.   Archaeologists from the British Museum were sent down from London and they found all sorts of primitive equipment without having to go too deep into the soil.   You can see there is a long slope running down from the farmhouse.    They said that there were probably dozens and dozens of small caves and tunnels under the ground from where we are standing, until just before the houses; caves where primitive humans once lived.   You may or may not know it, but this country of ours went through some massive changes over the eons; from a beautiful Mediterranean climate to die for, to a sheet of ice that covered nearly the entire country.    Early visitors to our great country arrived in hope of settlement, but were driven out by the extremes of a still growing landmass.   Rivers came and went, while floods moved soil and created shapes that changed the countryside to what we have today: England, God’s little piece of countryside-by-the-sea.   The archaeologists were of the opinion that some of the earliest humans tried to settle here on several occasions, but the conditions proved to be too harsh during that period, so they moved on.   Eventually floods from rivers long since gone carried rich fertile soil that had lain in wait miles upstream and deposited it on the hill that became known as Forster’s farm long after the primitive humans had evacuated the area.   Now, as you can see, time and nature are both now moving on and the farm is changing once again … now it is naught but weeds and long grass.”

“Why did they keep building when the sinkhole opened?   Weren’t they worried more would open up; that the houses could also collapse?”   Mary asked, her interest peaked by being so close to a piece of the past long gone.

“No.    The land is flat and reasonably solid where the houses sit.   The builders had been using the area where the sinkhole exposed the caves to store all the timber for the houses, and they must have applied too much weight to a fragile part of a cave causing the whole thing to collapse.   When the ground caved in it exposed a fair area, but only dropped to somewhere around six feet into the ground, which meant they were able to recover all the timber without too much trouble.    There was no further exploration of the area for other caves or buried treasure.   The archaeologists only stayed for just over a week, but they were fairly certain that the caves and tunnels would originally have run all the way up to where we are now standing, though they doubted that the weight of the workers and their equipment would have caused any problems to the thick, compact soil that was the farm fields at the time.  It was all manual work back then on the farm.   Not even the large plough horses or oxen were considered to be a problem.   The archaeologists categorically stated it was only the bottom caves that were ever at risk with the water that had run down the hill and collected in them over thousands of years.    And they have been proved correct in their assumption over the years since.”

“Why didn’t the museum turn it into a bigger dig?”   Martin asked in surprise,   “These days the farm would have been completely dug up under some bureaucratic ‘Heritage Listed Site’ ruling.”

“A matter of survival, I should imagine“   Harvey replied with a huge grin.   “You can dig up old cups and plates all day long, but you can’t eat them.   This was a living, breathing farm that fed most of the village back when this happened.   It was not something that Lord Trentham would relinquish giving up without a fight.   Besides, there was not a lot of money in the kitty back then for museums to idle their day’s away digging up old cups and bones in rural backyards.   It was all volunteer work back then – and there were no volunteers in Trenthamville putting their hands up.   Everybody here pulled their weight.   They were all too busy with their jobs that took them from sun up to sun set to find the time to potter around in unsafe sinkholes.

The archaeologists had been certain that the farm was honeycombed with the caves and tunnels, but once they had left, and the building recommenced, local interest soon began to wane  – and it would have been all but forgotten very quickly had it been for one particular night when a light exploded out of the ground.”

“Oh, a ghost story – how cool.”    Mary said, the excitement in her voice bringing a wry smile to Harvey’s face, “I think that I have heard about this light.”

“This is not the one that happened a little over a week ago.”   Harvey advised her, “This one happened not long after the sinkhole had delayed work on the houses, and it was only seen by a family of three who were the first to live in one of the newly built homes.    Each member of that family swore something emitted from the exposed cave where the sinkhole had appeared.   A huge thing with giant wings that had flown out the bowels of the earth in the midst of a blast of light so bright it threatened to blind them for a moment.   It had been on the downside of twilight, the time of the evening when the inside lighting makes the outside seem even darker than it really was.   They had been sitting around the table having a drink when the outside of the house lit up so bright that they thought a fire had broken out, and as they ran out of the house they could see the strength and power of the light that shot out of the sinkhole and screamed upwards to the heavens.   And then they noticed that there was something inside that light … and whatever it was, it was thick and it was big.   But no other details could be made out … not until it got higher in the sky on.   The night had been clear when the setting sun and the rising moon had exchanged pleasantries in passing; clear with the exception of the strange light from the sinkhole which suddenly disappeared, replaced by a background of stars, and the thing that had flown out of the cave under cover of the strange light was now silhouetted against the brightness of a blood red winter’s moon now already almost  a quarter of its way upwards … and it was huge, was the creature.   So huge that at times during its aerial display of agility, as it circled directly in front of the moon, that the moon itself momentarily disappeared from sight and it gave the illusion that flames were emitting from every portion of the creature’s body.   So huge was the creature, so bright was its outline as it seemingly rolled and played in the freedom of the sky they saw more than they were ready to see.   The bottom half of the creature looked like the lower half of a draft horse, but with only two legs, and coated with hair and scales, and a human like body formed the upper half, albeit a human body with massive wings like an angel, and a human body with the face of the devil itself … complete with horns.   That was all they saw.   The nightmare they were watching suddenly flew away as fast as lightning leaves a cloud and disappeared amongst the stars, never to be seen again.  The family that had reported seeing the creature had a reputation for the drink and were not believed, but that didn’t stop the arising of a new local legend that states a creature still lives beneath the grounds of Forster’s farm and will arise again one night on the beams of a devil’s moon, and his sighting will signify the end of mankind.

“Wow!  That is some story.”   Mary admitted,   “What is a devil’s moon?”

“I imagine it means different things in different countries.   Here in Trenthamville it means a blood red moon rising as the last ray of sunshine throws every ounce of daylight it has left at the rising moon so it hits the darkening sky giving the impression it is on fire.”

“That sounds romantic, not scary.”   Mary said with a small giggle, “has anybody seen the creature since?'”

“It depends on who you ask, and sometimes how sober they are.”   Harvey replied with a grin, “but the world hasn’t ended yet.”

“No, I guess not.  But what about the smell … is there any connection between it and the creature?

“I have not heard of any.   I think that it is gas created by rotting vegetation and the odd dead animal; Foxes, badgers, and other small creatures that have got themselves trapped in one of the many pit holes that now frequent this section of the farm, where the gas has been caught in a pocket, and is only released when some of the underground soil erodes or collapses.    The farm hasn’t been tilled for many years now, and a lot of the ground has deteriorated over time.   There are many areas where pit holes now appear where cattle once grazed, or potatoes grew, and many of them are hidden beneath the long grass and weeds.    It is not a major problem.   It is only a local event and occurs primarily beginning here, where we are standing, and going down towards the far end of the farm which is where the majority of the pit holes are … and it is also the same area where the caves are presumed to be, which is why I say that the farm itself can’t be built on.   The smell will subside shortly.”

“Wouldn’t it be dangerous to traverse the farm if there are hidden holes in the grounds?”   Mary asked with due concern,   “Why don’t they spray the area to expose the holes to make it safe?   Or fill them in, that would be even better, wouldn’t it?”

“They used to,”   Harvey advised, “but it proved too expensive.   The farm has very little income.  It isn’t a huge renter because it provides nothing to the renter.   It suited the professor’s purpose, but he is the only one to rent it in well over a year.   Before that it was only used by weekenders when there was absolutely nothing else available in the village at all … and that wasn’t very often.   The land isn’t deemed to be conducive to building on because of the caves, and the good soil petered out years ago.   The house may be sold one day, but it would only be good as a ‘status symbol’ after a good clean up for a city boy, would-be-lord-of-the-manor, or as a country guest house for city dwellers …that sort of thing.   It will never be any good for a farm again, not a working one at least, and it is deemed too dangerous for a housing development.   Nobody ever comes here.   I am probably the only one in the village that ever needs to come here, outside of a renter, or the trustee, that is.   And I have a safe trail to follow … even in the semi-dark.   Everybody else would come in the way that you did.”

“You seem to be well informed about the farm.”   Martin pointed out,   “Perhaps there is something that you can help us with.”

“Oh, I am sorry,”   Mary said with a slight blush on her cheeks, “Where are my manners?   Martin, Joseph, this is Harvey.   Harvey, these are my friends, Martin, and Joseph.”

“Hello, Martin.   Harvey Watson.”   Harvey stated as he stepped forward to offer his hand to Martin who was the closest, “I am the part time maintenance man and egg collector here at the farm.   I look after the chickens, collect the eggs, mow the lawn around the farmhouse once a month or so, and do a bit of maintenance when it’s required … that sort of thing.   An all-rounder you might say.”

Martin and Harvey exchanged greetings, then Harvey turned to emulate the handshake with Joseph, but it was Mary that made the observation.

“Joseph, are you alright.  You look simply peaked.”   Mary asked, her voice reeking of concern for his welfare,   “You are sweating like a pig.   And what is wrong with your eyes.   Are you with us, Joseph?    You look like you are a thousand miles away.  Joseph!   Joseph!    Answer me.”   Mary reached out and placed her hands around his and pleaded with him to communicate,   “You are frightening me, Joseph.   Please talk to me.”

Martin walked over to Joseph and placed his hand on Joseph’s forehead, quickly retracting it.    “I think he’s running a fever.   His body is bloody hot.   And he is sweating badly.    Perhaps we should call a doctor?  Do you have a number of a local doctor, Harvey?”

“Yes, yes, I do.   But may I suggest that we take him up to the house where he can sit down for a moment.   He might simply be having a reaction to the odour.   Nobody knows what it really is, nor do I think anybody has ever considered finding out.   It comes and goes, and as far as I know nobody has ever been killed by it, though I believe a few have been rather unwell for several hours.   Let us just help him move inside the farmhouse and get some fresher air and see how he goes.   If he has still not recovered, at least back to some form of acceptable lucidity, say within the half hour, then we will contact the doctor.  Otherwise it may very well be a long trip for the doctor for nothing.   Doctor James covers a lot of territory around here.   He could be anywhere up to fifteen or twenty miles away, so we don’t want to make him come all this way and find that it turns out to be a false alarm.”

Martin and Mary agreed, but with reservations, especially about finding fresh air inside the house, but they said nothing.   Though they wondered that if it had been the strange stench that emitted from below the ground that had been responsible for Joseph’s current condition … then why hadn’t if affected them.

Mary wrapped her arm around Joseph’s waist to support him, but got a surprise when she did … Joseph was stiff as a board.   A sensation that was not lost on Martin as he did the same thing from the other side, but that was not what unsettled them the most as they tried to move him … it was the fact that Joseph was so stiff he couldn’t be moved without the fear of damaging him.   It was like he was made of cement or lead, or was nailed or staked to the ground; They could not move him one centimetre.   Joseph was fixed to the spot, his glazed eyes frozen in time … and to see him in this condition brought tears to Mary’s eyes.

********

EPISODE 48

PART 6

“It is alright, Joseph.   It is all over now.”

The voice startled Joseph so much his eyes almost exploded as they snapped open.   And with that action he received another start, only, this time, he couldn’t believe his eyes.   The darkness had completely disappeared.   In fact it was so bright now that he had to raise his hands to his eyes, but it didn’t make any difference other than to distract his attention from the voice that had given him such a fright.  All he could do was look down to the ground below and let nature do its work for him.  It took quiet a few seconds, but eventually he was able to slowly raise his head upwards and take in the vision that had been denied to him on his first attempt.   The sun had been so bright to his eyes he had feared he would suffer permanent blindness.   Now his eyes could take in anything and everything he looked at, including the farmhouse where his friends had been killed.   And that gave him cause to accept another shock as he took in the scene when it suddenly dawned on him that not only was he still alive, but he could now see his friends who were still standing, talking, as they had been before they had been obliterated.   And he was still standing there facing in towards Mary.   It was as if nothing had happened, nothing but … and it was then he realised that the Punjaniti was nowhere in sight even though it had fallen on him … ‘fallen on me, it damn well fell on me … all thirty thousand tons of it!’   Joseph had no idea at all what the huge creature really weighed, but it had seemed bulky enough to do the damage that his mind now conjured up.   It suddenly hit Joseph that even though he seemed to have also survived the carnage that had resulted from the attack on his other self, the one that was still standing in front of Mary – it was with this version of himself that was sending his mind reeling; it was the one that was giving him the pounding headache; it was the thing that was confusing the life out of him.   It was the fact that he was not damaged in anyway whatsoever.   And Joseph knew that it was wrong, because the weight of the creature’s huge body should have pulverised this version of him when it fell on him right here where he was still standing.   He should now be lying flat as a pancake on the ground, every bone in his body broken, and crushed into a thousand grams of bloody dust.   But he was still standing upright, without a pain any greater than was being caused by the pounding within his head from the headache this was all giving him.

Joseph closed his eyes and squeezed them tight in frustration – then opened them again slowly, cautiously moving them around the image of his far distant friends as he tried to ascertain the reality of their existence.   His head was spinning with residual fear, both in relation to the expected return of the creature … and the expected forthcoming loss of his sanity.   And the image of the back of his own body some distance away facing Mary did little to alleviate his confusion and fear.

‘Where am I … surely I can’t be in two places at the same time? ‘   He asked nobody in particular, ‘What is going on?    Surely this is madness … it has to be?’  Joseph’s nerves were on edge.   His body was shaking, and the sweat on his face and arms was dripping to the ground below like a fountain in full flow.   ‘This is madness,’ he reaffirmed to himself, ‘this is total and unadulterated madness.’

Joseph looked around and tried to work out where he was, but he could recognise nothing.  It was like being in a void – there was nothing but what he could see ahead of him – the farmhouse – his friends – the stranger – himself.   There was no side, no behind, no above, no below … nothing there to see, to recognise, just darkness.   Then something unexpected surprised Joseph.   A red fog suddenly appeared in front of his eyes.   Just a small wisp of fog at first, gently rolling backwards and forwards at the feet of his friends as if was being tickled by the most gentle of breezes,   But, within a second, it became more irrational in its movements as it quickly began to rise ever upwards, until suddenly he could no longer see his friends.   The fog began to get thicker, its colour became redder, but what suddenly appeared in the middle of the red haze made the hackles on the nape of Joseph’s neck rise, and the small of his back to become so taut the pain was unbearable.   Joseph knew in that eventful second, that death had finally arrived, when he found himself staring in the hate filled eyes of the Punjaniti.

********

Episode 48

Part 7

A shudder ran through Joseph’s entire body as the Punjaniti took one step forward towards him, and as it moved – the fog immediately thickened and swirled over the creature – covering it completely from sight – covering everything from sight.   Joseph was petrified in the red darkness, blinded by the fog.   His heart rate increased by the second with the sound of every thud of the slowly approaching Punaniti’s feet crashing into his head.    He could smell the rank arrival of death lingering inside the fog, a vile smell that grew fouler and more obnoxious with every step that vibrated through his pounding skull.   The steps came closer, and closer … and closer still.   Joseph could see the fog swirling more and more aggressively the closer the huge creature got to him, the smell growing so repugnant Joseph was on the verge of throwing up … when suddenly, unexpectedly, the noise abated … and there was dead silence; there was no sound to be heard whatsoever – with the single, terrifying exception of Joseph’s wildly beating heart.   Nothing … there was nothing, absolutely nothing.   No strange noises to send shivers down his spine, no movement to send the fear in his heart into overdrive … no sordid air to suck in to his lungs … nothing.    To Joseph the sound of silence was more distressing and worrying than the aggressive thumping of the humongous hooves that had preceded it.   The bareness of nothingness gave cause to an increase in imagination, and soon, in the cold darkness of the fog, in the absolute death inspired silence, every self-created wisp of movement or sound within the now blood red fog was treated as a warning of his imminent demise.   Every blade of grass, every minuscule ant, anything and everything, that never moved, that was never seen, that was never heard, was intensified and heard in Joseph’s imagination, seen in his imagination, and treated with paranoid suspicion as a result.    Joseph’s imaginative thought process increased in its intensity, and the endless array of events that were possibly taking place within the darkened, confined, space began to spread like wildfire.    Noises: loud noises, soft noises, unearthly noises began to filter through his ears.   Lights twirled, flickered, exploded behind his eyes; eyes that he no longer knew if they were currently open, or closed … and then the smells began to arrive.   Sweet, joyful and pleasant smells began to penetrate his senses.  Smells that took his mind to happiness and childhood, but they were soon overridden by smells that induced fear and hatred to enter his system.   Increasingly hostile, intimidating, obnoxious, odours that threatened to dissolve his brain as they took it to hell and back.   And as a result of this assault on his already badly fractured system, Joseph could now feel the strength of the fear that was overpowering him.   He could feel the walls closing around him as the mind of the Punjaniti entered into his mind’s domain, and he knew the fight was over.  The Punjaniti had won.

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EPISODE 48

PART 8

Joseph knew that this was the start of permanent madness taking over his life.   His head felt like it was on fire, his brain felt constantly uncomfortable.   It was as if there were battery charged wires inserted into it – and the power they produced was being discharged through the wires every other second.   His teeth were rotting and one by one falling down into his system where they would soon lacerate his insides…. and the beasts were crawling through his entire body as they ate their way out of him.    Joseph was feeling totally out of control, frightened beyond description by what his brain was telling him … and he had no idea how to stop whatever it was that was going on inside his head.

And then the voices arrived.   ‘Joseph … Joseph … We are waiting for you.’    Suddenly Joseph’s head was full of souls that he knew instinctively had been previous victims of the Punjaniti.    In a background as dark as black can be dark, the faces of the deceased rolled around as if there was no gravity to ground them.   Their sunken eyes and their twisted, distorted, faces giving them a disturbingly grotesque look as their heads floated through the illusion of space the black background created.  Twisting, turning, and flipping around in all directions like flotsam on the tidal change.

   Then the arms came out of the darkness; arms not with flesh, but bare bone.   Skeletal bones, a yellowish shade of white with long fingers, and even longer nails  reached out to touch him, to caress his arms and hands with their inquisitive needs.   Bones that sent spasms of fear and mistrust through his mind as they prodded and probed his sweating skin; Bones that represented two hands on two, ever elongating arms that now reached out further from the darkness; hands that began to gently stroke at his cheeks, under his chin – and then five digits; four fingers and a thumb, moved across his lips – and forcefully inserted themselves into his mouth before gripping the flesh that covered the lips until all  ten digits had complete control of his mouth.   And then, their grip tightened on the lip until there was no more pressure left to apply.   The nagging pain from the continued force being applied to Joseph’s mouth was unbearable, but the skeletal hands were no way finished in their terror of his senses.   As Joseph withered in pain and fear, the fingers, still tightly gripped on his lips, retracted back to the darkness as hard and fast as they could move … and began extracting the skin from Joseph’s now bleeding lips as they moved.

Joseph knew not what to do, he was going mad, he was about to be killed – and now he was sharing his mind with the dead who were about to rip the flesh of his face.   ‘Something,’ he thought … ‘I have to do something … anything, but I have to something.”   However, there was only one thing he that he could do.

As the top half of his lip became stretched over his forehead, and the bottom half reached under his chin …Joseph screamed the scream of the dead about to leave this mortal coil.

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EPISODE 48

PART 9

“Joseph!   Desist!   It is only a nightmare.   You are not going insane… you are safe!

Joseph literally jumped on the spot when the voice broke into his private mental breakdown.   It gave him such a start he instantly felt it should have given him the heart attack he had been expecting virtually since he had walked through the front door of the garage this morning.   But the voice itself was non-threatening.   It was calm, it was clear, and it was reasonably soft in reality, despite the thunderous volume he had imagined it had produced when it had frightened him.  But, never-the-less, it demanded the respect of attention by its audience, albeit listening without interruption … and, somehow, despite his current mentally frail condition, Joseph did what was asked of him.

“Joseph, it was but a hallucination.”   The voice advised, “Your mind is just reacting to all that you have been through today.   Do not fret so.   It was just an overworked mind releasing pent up worries within itself via a simulated nightmare.   I most sincerely apologise for what I have put you through by bringing you here after what took place at the garage earlier.   However, it was essential that I spoke to you today; it was essential, but I underestimated the effect it would have on you by doing it the way that I did.   I am afraid what the Punjaniti has done is still playing havoc with my decision making.   I forget too easily that you have not yet had the experiences that will come your way in due course … perhaps.   What you witnessed when you thought that your friends were being attacked is what happened, but not what could have happened.   You turned away too quick in your sorrow for both what you thought was about to happen to your friends, and to farewell Rosetta, to see what really happened.    Though you probably wouldn’t have understood what you saw and heard had you watched it through.   What you have suffered in the past few minutes is simply your mind’s reaction to things that it didn’t want to know, nor knew how to handle.”

Joseph managed to take in every word the strange voice had spoken, but had to admit to himself that it was all as clear as mud at the moment.  He spun quickly in the presumed direction of the voice, this time to find a figure of indefinable height or description; a mysterious figure cloaked from head to foot in black standing before him in the full light of day in a completely open field roughly one hundred yards from the top side of the barn where the others were still standing.

“Who are you, and what is happening to me?”  Joseph’s voice was incredibly calm for the fear and confusion that bubbled away inside him; it was, however, a superb attempt of self control.   Joseph wanted to hear the complete episodic mystery explained in one short, sharp burst; Joseph wanted an explanation for every single thing that he and his friends had encountered since they had arrived in Trenthamville … and everything that had happened to him today.   Why Mary had behaved the way she had?   How could he see himself in the distance as he and his friends died … then see them all suddenly came back to life with no care or interest in what had just happened to them.   Why was he here … and for that matter, where was here?  Everything was a mystery at the moment … and he wanted answers.   But, Joseph knew that to learn the truth he would need to show patience and restrain his line of questioning to a speed and level he could handle and retain in the current disarray of his mind.

“Who I am will come back to you when it becomes necessary, Joseph, perhaps even in the course of this conversation.   As may the answers you require.”   The voice replied,   “We have had many conversations over a period of time, and there will be many more to come.   Much of what has passed through us is locked up safely inside your head for recall when the time is right.  To reopen those conversations at the moment would take more time than we have, for with each question asked, the answer will open a new question … and each new question and answer make things harder and harder for you to comprehend.   It is better we allow things to open up for you in the right sequence – under the right conditions; under natural conditions.   For the moment it is important that you fully understand the new threat to your life that exists so you can be ready to repel the attacks that were never meant to happen.”

“What do you mean?”  The statement made by the black robed monk had thrown Joseph completely off balance.   “Who want’s to attack me … and why do they?”   He asked.

“The Punjaniti, naturally,”   The monk replied, “because he want’s you dead as soon as possible.”

“Naturally, who else but the Punjaniti … sorry, I should have seen that one coming.”   Joseph was despairing at the way his life was spiralling at the moment.   He could feel his mind spinning in total mystification as it attempted to do the impossible and make some sense of things.    And, of course, it couldn’t.  “I am sorry to be such a nuisance, but I really do not understand why my days and nights here in Trethamville are so tied up with this Punjaniti.   Despite my own disbelief at what I am about to say I need to understand a bit more about everything that is happening.    Despite my fear and concerns about this battle that I am supposed to believe I am involved in, I am willing to accept that the Punjaniti and the Punjant are both real, and that there is a statue that I must find and exchange for the antidote to Rosetta and her father’s condition … and that is about the end of my knowledge about virtually everything regarding Trenthamville and the Punjaniti.   How did I get myself in this mess?”

“You truly do not know?”

“No.  I truly do not.  Would you mind telling me?”

“I am afraid that we do not know either.   You were brought to our attention by our Earth observers.   We have some humans that we can trust to keep their eyes and ears open and advise us of what they witness that involves the Punjaniti.   What they reported convinced us to check on you, and you were proving yourself more than resourceful when we observed you.   When we realised just how resourceful you were I made contact with you and have provided you with relevant information that would help you in your apparent destiny.   However it has always only been information for you to analyse in order to have an equal chance in the battle.  I have never advised you how to battle.  For you it had to be purely an instinctive reaction to each and every situation, and it still is.   We couldn’t advise you how to do battle with the Punjaniti because you had never shown any ability to battle the way that you do now – until your battles began.   So we have no idea what you are capable of … even now you still surprise us with some things that you come up with.   I travelled back in time to learn why you have been doing what you have been doing, though careful to not become privy to information that may somehow cause me to accidentally do something that would defile the great plan that had been set up for you.   However, even though I traced you back to your time in the orphanage before I first made contact with you, I found nothing of help to my quest.”

“You can time travel?”   Joseph asked in amazement, “You are from the future!”

“In a manner of speaking, the answer is yes.   However, it is primarily a projection of the mind that travels.   I can physically travel through time, but it is much easier and quicker if I only take my mind almost anywhere and anytime within the seven universes, anywhere other than where are limitations set in place and governed by interplanetary law.”

“Does that mean that you are not really here right now?   That you are a projection of sorts … a hologram, perhaps?”

“That is an Earth term, but for all sakes and purposes the answer is yes.  But I am not a recording.   I am here in real time.   And within certain limits I can move around freely through spaced areas.   That means that I can walk in open spaces, go through open doorways, catch a bus or climb a hill.    I am not like a ghost; I cannot go through walls and rocks, and I cannot fly.”

Joseph ignored the unbelievable incredibility of what the monk was saying; he had become too excited at the potential of finding out more about himself.   The monk had visited the orphanage.   “Did you see who found me and took me to the orphanage?   Did you see who left me to be found?”

“I am sorry, Joseph.  I could not.   To go that extra distance was forbidden.   I travel freely through time under the authority of the three time control planets, but there are some time-zones that are forbidden to enter, and I simply cannot move through them.   It is as if a solid invisible wall has been placed around a particular point in time.   I can reach it, I can climb over it, or go around it, but I cannot enter it.   When I reached your arrival at the orphanage it was only to see the matron caressing you in her arms as she watched the door behind me closing as whoever had deposited you there left the room.   I was not allowed to go back any further in your time-line, nor was I allowed to follow and question whoever it was.

“That is a shame.   Thank you, anyway.   If you are from the future is that when you discovered me?”

“Yes.”

“So you think that I have already started to do battle with the creature”

“It had seemed so at the time.   Now … I don’t know.   Things are getting distorted.  There is currently a disruption in time.   Events that have already taken place suddenly have no place in the history of time; events that hadn’t previously happened in the current time-zone now are recorded in time-lines.   There is a major problem.   Time has been distorted and we now cannot travel back into your time-line past this point in time.  This means that we have no way of determining how or why you became involved.   We can only see into your future, but even that is becoming  corrupted because it is now constantly on course for change.”

“How can my future change if I haven’t arrived there yet.   I thought that today was yesterday’s future and tomorrow’s past?”

“It usually is.   But there is something happening at the moment that is unprecedented in time.   The Punjaniti legitimately exists in this time zone.   I mean this not as in a case of law, but that it is a time that he travels through on his journey of life as you do.   He was born long before time was recorded, long before it was even given a name, and it is at this point in time, the one that you and I are now sharing, that he is currently travelling through on his journey to his future.   He journeys to several planets from time to time, but it is always in the same time -zone, the one that you and he currently share.   And time for both of you travels forward.   Whatever age you are right at this very moment, and whatever age the Punjaniti is at this moment of time, you will both be ten years older in ten years time providing that you both survive that long.   This is the Punjaniti you do battle with, and will continue to until one of you is defeated.  But the Punjaniti is not a time wanderer.   He cannot travel forwards and backwards in time … he can only travel forward.   That is a fact.  It always has been a fact … until now.”

“Why?   What happened?”

Sometime in the near future, as a result of his once again losing a battle to you, the Punjaniti used his incredible powers to clone himself.   A perfect replica; a replica so perfect it could have been the original.  It is capable of complete decision making equal to the bona fide version that created it, and is fully aware of what is required of it.”

“How many versions are there?”  Joseph was still having enough trouble fully accepting that there really was a Punjaniti, never mind a half dozen or more.

“There is only one ‘Bona fide’ Punjaniti, but he will always exist in two versions until the day that he dies; only then will there be only one Punjaniti.  Past, present and future all rolled up into one little coffin.  At the moment the current version currently resides in this time-zone with you, and the other version that will exist will do so in the future.   Now it is important to understand that to the future version of the Punjaniti this time-zone is the past … and one learns from past mistakes.   The Punjaniti from the future has learnt that lesson and has now found a way to come back in time with gained knowledge that he hopes will allow him to rectify those mistakes.   In more simpler terms, he has come back to face you for the first time, only, for him, it will be the second time.   The Punjaniti thinks that he can now beat you because he already knows how you will do battle in each and every skirmish and he will be ready for you.   I will explain more in a moment.   But first we must help you overcome the problem that is currently devouring  you.  Your sanity.

It appears that you are also finding everything to be uncomfortable at the moment, especially after what happened to Rosetta.   You really have no idea what you have got yourself into, but it feels like it is more than you can handle, and this is putting you very much on-edge.   After all, you feel that you are here by accident and everything is getting out of hand.   What you really need, you feel, is to be able to have a good heart-to-heart with someone, but you have no-one to turn to … and that is probably true.   But you did not volunteer by accident, and you were not forced into this world of the Punjaniti.   We do not know why you are really involved in the battle with the Punjaniti any more than you do at the moment, but we have seen how you handle yourself in the future, and I can assure you that you handled yourself with aplomb.   And it is for that very reason we are assured that what you are doing is your destiny.    It would be assumed that the facts behind why you commenced this journey will eventually be revealed, but at the moment you are so lacking in confidence and reason that you are even contemplating quitting your role in the battle with the Punjaniti.   You really need to take a deep breath, Joseph, and allow your mind to calm down so you can deal with what I am about to tell you.”

Joseph felt affronted by the monk’s statement … even if it was at least partially true.  Joseph was fast becoming worried about this strange person in the black robes.  As far as he was concerned the monk was revealing more information about him than even he knew about himself.   Joseph had to concede that his mind had continuously received thoughts to the possibility of his becoming involved in something that was not an everyday occurrence over the past few days.   ‘Perhaps even long before the day I met Rosetta’, he wondered, as his mind unexpectedly flashed a memory of the fleeting images in his head that turned up regularly whenever he went on-line to check his stars at Johnson’s.   ‘Johnson’s!   My god,’ he suddenly thought, ‘how long ago was I last there?   Three days ago!   It feels like three years.    So much has happened since that day I met Rosetta‘

“These attacks will continue to happen,”   The monk went on, forcing Joseph to pay attention with more threats to his life,” regardless of whether or not you wish to continue the journey.   The Punjaniti no longer wants to simply fight you, expecting to eventually defeat you … he now intends to kill you as fast as he can – and get you out of his way.   And he has found a way that he is certain will gain him the outcome he desires.   He will not be concerned if you no longer wish to do battle – he just wants to see you die.   And if you decide to no longer fight him … then there is no doubt that you will be helping the Punjaniti to achieve his aim.   And a lot more people will also die as a result of your inaction.”

Joseph was shocked by this declaration; first death threats, and now guilt on top.   Joseph was uncertain if what was being said to him at the moment was to be believed, or if he was wandering carelessly into a trap.    Suddenly Joseph made a snap decision.   He stopped listening for a moment and turned his thoughts completely off and stared deep into a self created darkness, giving his well worn mind the opportunity to go about its business without his help.   Joseph was unwilling to play questions and answers with his own mind … as far as he was concerned his mind had a duty to do its job, and he had only given it instructions of how he wanted it to perform but a few moments ago.   And, as this event began to take place, Joseph felt certain that, as if in agreement with his decision, the monk would remain silent for the duration.

The seconds ticked by at an extremely slow pace, albeit without any form of interruption, until finally, in an ‘in for a penny, in for a pound’ moment, Joseph’s mind came back and advised Joseph of its decision; a decision Joseph agreed with.   Joseph opened his eyes and turned to face the monk.   Then, in a slow, methodical tone, he spoke,  “And how, exactly, would you suggest that I calm down and take a deep breath when I have no idea what you are talking about.   How am I supposed to know what I am supposed to stop worrying about?   There is a possibility that I do know you, but my mind won’t process any memory of you at the moment, and at the moment I am full of mistrust of everything and everybody … and that certainly includes you.”

“You are currently in denial, Joseph,” the voice replied, retaining its slow, non-threatening tone, “Defensively perhaps, but in denial regardless.   You do know the answers to most of your questions – you just don’t want to admit it to yourself.   You are sticking your head in the sand, rather than accept that you have now reached the point in your life that you have known was coming since the day that you were born.   The dreams you saw, the flashes of the unknown that entered your mind on countless occasions as you used the internet to show you your life’s future.   There was a time when you saw yourself as some kind of hero about to break free from your shackles and save the world … now that time is nearing, you are panicking, trying to ignore what is going on in your mind, and in your life.   This is a seriously deadly situation that you are in, Joseph, a life and death situation – your life, your death … and you do need help.  Please, allow me to calm you down – my way.”

Joseph assumed that the monk-like figure in black was giving him an offer of choice, but before he could think about the question in greater detail the inside of his head suddenly exploded in brilliant colours.   Colours so bright, so clear, it was as if he was watching a Sir David Attenborough nature special on a five thousand inch, 160K, three dimensional, ultra high definition screen.   And on the screen butterflies of every colour and design known to mankind, and more, were slowly beating their wings as they gracefully made their way across the most incredibly designed-by-nature floral background that he had ever seen.   It was as if ‘Beautiful Garden’s had located and photographed the most wonderful, breathtaking, creation ever known to mankind, but were still not satisfied until it had been photoshopped to somewhere well beyond absolute perfection.    Something like Toy Story’s Buzz Lightyear’s ‘To infinity … and beyond’.   It was like an incredible dream that had come to life and invited Joseph in to share its impossible beauty and serenity.   And it was working.   Joseph’s mind instantly began to encompass the joys and wonders on display equally as fast as the fear and futility of his quest began to depart.   He felt a calmness that rested lightly over his body that took him back to his youth in the orphanage; to games of soccer, and cricket on the orphanage’s spacious grounds.    To the girls giggling and the boys infectious laughter at birthday parties, and visits to the zoo where the antics of the monkeys and some of the other inmates had them all in stitches, or at a Punch and Judy show the orphanage had arranged to have visit them.   Joseph felt, at this very moment in his life, as if he had reached the promised-land while he was still a living, breathing, and very fragile, human life-form.   But as he allowed the three-dimensional image to completely wrap itself around him he began to realise that it was not a three dimension world that he was immersed in, but virtual reality in 4D.   He was no longer watching a recorded program, he was inside it; he was part of it.   Joseph could now feel the warmth of the planet, and the soft breeze caused by the butterfly’s wings that rippled through it.   He could smell the hundreds of different, deliciously sweet fragrances that emitted from the flowers, the shrubs, the trees.   And he could turn his head and body in any direction and see nothing but the idyllic world that he had been invited into.

And as he watched, mesmerised by the radiance of the millions of combinations of colours that surrounded him, by the many fragrances that filled his soul with joy, Joseph suddenly realised that they weren’t butterflies, but a race of incredibly attractive, minuscule, humanoid like creatures.  “Les Fées.” a soft female voice whispered in his ear as if clarifying the new knowledge he had just gained, “They are Les Fées of Veros.”   A name that Joseph was to learn later was ‘The Fairies of Veros’ in the French language on planet Earth.   Veros being the inhabitants name for the planet that Earth referred to as the far distant uninhabitable ‘Planet X6-8A’.   Joseph was yet to learn that inhabited planets such as Gargoria and Randoline, Arrabutta and Sensoria, and every other planet with life-forms spread across the seven universes had no idea of the name some little known astronomer from the planet Earth had given them when they discovered the presence of the planet.   Not that any of them were likely to change the name of their planet should that information become known to them someday in the future … just interesting to know.

And it was at this point that Joseph discovered the delightful creatures were happily moving around, not just through an extremely thick growth of unbelievably gorgeous plants and ferns and trees of every possible colour, shape and size as he had first thought, but through and along the airwaves and breezes that meandered in and out, through and behind, their homes and communes.   Because the trees and shrubs and flowers were their homes.    Joseph looked for the owner of the voice that had spoken to him, but was unsuccessful in his attempt which he regretted.   He would have loved to have found out more about this strange, yet extremely beautiful, planet and its equally wonderful inhabitants.   He was disappointed that he could not make contact with the incredible inhabitants of this interplanetary ‘Shanrgi–La’, but he was appreciative of what the monk had given him as promised.   Tranquillity and peace, and the bonus chance to visit another world, another life-form, an event that may never have been bestowed on him had it not been for his breakdown.  ‘Perhaps I could overcome the emotional roller coaster ride the past few days have taken me on and learn a bit more about what was expected of me before I walk away?’,  Joseph thought to himself   And out of sight, the monk smiled, and nodded his head in agreement.

In the meantime Joseph was more than quite willing to spend as much time in this interplanetary paradise as the monk would allow him.

********

The seconds turned to minutes, and the minutes soon turned to an hour, but never once to boredom.   As he looked around him, Joseph was constantly bedazzled by the sight of what he saw.   He became absorbed by the tranquillity of the scene he was watching, enhanced by the soft lilt of the music that he swore accompanied the small creatures as they constantly moved around their world.   And, the longer he remained in this tranquil state, the more he could feel the stress lifting off his mind and blown somewhere far, far away from where he currently stood watching this unbelievable display of pure magic.

Eventually, as if the lens of a camera had slowly been zoomed back to its maximum width, more and more of the stunning butterfly people began appearing before his eyes.   Soon thousands, millions, seemingly billions were flying in incredible artistic formations across and around the skyline.   And as the population in the sky increased they eventually transformed from life forms into pixels in an incredible display of art that was forming in the sky to the pleasure of his eyes, and his eyes alone.   A floating parade similar to the floral displays presented at carnival time in different countries on Earth; Joseph couldn’t recognise the majority of images that were being created, outside of some of the floral displays that were similar to the ones he could see in his current surroundings, but he appreciated the display regardless; it was a massive arrangement of flying art – it was utterly magnificent in his eyes.   Joseph’s entire face lit up in appreciation of what he was witnessing.   He had seen nothing like this in his entire life, and he could feel a tear of joy forming in the corner of his eye – then suddenly everything went black.

Joseph stepped back in shock – the air became rank – then putrid – then intolerable.    Finally, accompanied by a blast of extremely repetitious, head-splitting, thunder, and an equal display of power in the form of lightning strikes, the Punjaniti’s face appeared in the sky above him; a face, as usual, emitting pure hatred as he glared down in Joseph’s direction – then everything exploded into blackness once again.   Silence reigned.   For sixty seconds, not a second less, nor a second more, darkness was all Joseph could see, silence was all that he could hear, with the exception of his own heart which was beating at a worrying pace.   But, in the first second of the next minute, as if in slow motion, frame by frame, the image of the forest began to flicker before Joseph’s eyes to slowly reveal a burnt out, blackened, image of death and destruction.  There was nothing living, not one pixel, not one butterfly, not one blade of green grass, nor a red petal on a rose bush was visible in the image.   There was nothing to be seen but the smouldering remnants of a catastrophe.

Joseph felt sickened by what he now saw.   “The Punjaniti did this?”   He asked in repulsion at the revolting site that now engulfed his eyes.  “Why?”

“Because that is what it does to planets.”   The monk replied,   “That is why you have been trying to stop him – now, and in the future.  Not just for this planet, but for every planet in the seven universes … and at this moment in particular, to save your own planet; to save Planet Earth.   The creature is so old that it exceeds any living memories.  Nobody knows for certain why the creature has no known enemies.   There may have been in the beginning of creation: there may have been a reason for such a cunning carnivorous creature to exist.  But its existence no longer seems justified any more than does the near extinction of thousands of races throughout the seven universes that keeps the Punjaniti alive.

You have begun to get very close to achieving your aims.   However, the creature is aware of just how close you are getting which is why he has come back in time.   Why he has already tried to attack you, why he will continue to attack you more frequently.   He has come up with a new plan to defeat you, but he has made one mistake in his planning that stops him from being able to use it effectively at the moment … a mistake that may or not be rectified in the near future.   But, whether or not it is fixed, the Punjaniti’s new presence still puts your life even more at risk than it has been since you first took him on when you had no experience at all.”

Joseph hesitated to ask what the monk was about to reveal, but curiosity finally got the better of him, though his tone of voice made no attempt whatsoever to hide the worried feeling that was beginning to grow inside his entire body when he did finally inquire.

“The Punjaniti has come up with a way to increase his efforts to kill you.   He has found a way to return to this time zone and travel with you on every step of your journey so he can attack you whenever the opportunity arises.   However, he does not intend to do so just by his own hand, he intends doing this in co-ordination with the version of himself that truly resides in this time-zone.”

Joseph looked in shock at the monk; a million questions roaring through his mind.  But he hesitated too long to speak, and the monk continued with his barrage of fireballs that were now burning inside Joseph’s already overcrowded mind.

“This is fact … not a hypothesis.   The Punjaniti has the power to clone his future self, which he has done … and now he has sent it back to do battle against you at the side of the younger version of himself that resides in this time-zone.  The one that you were destined to do battle with; the version you have been battling in the future … the one you will continue to do battle with from this moment forth.

“I wouldn’t call the two encounters I have had with the Punjaniti – battles, assuming they were real.   They scared me witless, and I certainly didn’t fight back.”  Joseph objected vigorously.

“I am sorry, Joseph, I was referring to the battles that you had undertaken before the corruption in time occurred.  The attacks you are referring to are new attacks; attacks generated by the new arrival … the proxy.   You could not have done  anything about them for exactly the same reason the creature has been unable to harm you.   You are are both in slightly different time zones as a result of the way the proxy was despatched back in time.

That is part of the reason that I have come back from the future.   You have fought the Punjaniti in the past, the old past, but what the Punjaniti has done has disrupted time.   This way of explaining things to you is perplexing because the past has been altered slightly as a result of his actions.   The time-zone that I came from had a slightly different past the first time around.   The Punjaniti’s actions have disrupted the sequence of events of things which I unfortunately keep referring to.   Hopefully time will catch up with itself within the next few hours and we will be able to handle the situation a lot easier.   The Punjaniti forced a time control planet to do his bidding, and they had no option but to comply with his request, but did so begrudgingly, and with a few innovations that the Punjaniti was not aware of at the time.

What you now have is one Punjaniti in the future who is waiting for history to change, and two here in this time-zone, one of which is a proxy, who are attempting to change history.   The Punjaniti’s plan was simple.   The proxy would lay in wait in the shadows of your time-line as it awaited the arrival of the current version of itself … and when the attack by the residing version commenced, the proxy would join in the battle.   The bona fide version; the future version, was aware that it had failed when it first did battle with you, but was certain that if you were continually distracted by the two of them, they would quickly destroy you.   Especially when one of them knew every move you would make in advance.

There is, however, a problem for the proxy.   The Punjaniti itself cannot fly back and forwards through time.   It was forced to manipulate a scenario that involved a kidnapping and a ransom demand that required one of the three time control planets to despatch the newly created proxy to your time-line and it arrived in Trenthamville several days ago.   This is the one that has attempted to kill you on several occasions and failed on every occasion, including the attack a few minutes ago, and earlier this morning at the garage.   The time-line is simply the path in life that you have been creating since the moment you were born.   It is similar to your footprints trail, only it is recorded in real time, not in distance.   The time-lines of historical figures and events throughout the galaxies are often reviewed by historians so certain events can be researched accurately.   This method of research allows full observation of the event in real time as it actually occurred, so there is no doubt in the findings.   Scientists can also observe weather patterns and flora growth in a similar manner because all living things have a time-line.   There are several types of time-line transporters that are used, in this case it is a ‘shadow-ripple’.   A totally invisible carriage that seats one or two travellers.  It is for special use only and is rarely used because it is so limited in its uses, though the Punjaniti was never advised of its limitations.   The carriage is pre-programmed before it departs from the originating time-control planet to land at a particular point in time in the original time-line traveller’s life, and continue moving forward with the time-line traveller as they continually head towards the future.”

“It would have to be fairly large to house the Punjaniti, wouldn’t it?”

“You really have no idea just how huge the Punjaniti can become,”   The monk stated in a matter-of-fact tone, “but that is not relevant to the situation.   The body of the occupant is automatically shrunk to fit the compartment with comfort.  When the occupant needs to exit the carriage, they will only be able to do so for a predetermined length of time.   There are procedures in which the occupant can leave the cabin and regain their normal size, but they must be within a certain distance of the shadow-ripple within a certain time frame to regain entry and continue their journey.   Failure to do so may very well prevent them from ever leaving the time-line that they are currently residing in.  Should that happen they will be stuck in a single time-frame within a time-zone forever.

That said, in normal circumstances, the Punjaniti will need to reserve its energy which means that the proxy cannot be attacking you twenty four seven, or it will drain the bona fide Punjaniti dry of energy.   This is not a major problem for the proxy.   The shadow-ripple allows for the operator to stop and go at anytime that they feel like doing so.   After all, the shadow-ripple is a type of time machine in itself, only it can only go forward.   It cannot go sideways, and it cannot go backwards, but whatever awaits it in the future will always be there waiting for their arrival.   Should something be going to happen in twenty minutes time it will still happen in twenty minutes – no matter how long it takes them to arrive there.   By that I mean that the proxy does not have to travel in real-time to get somewhere on time, it simply has to get there at the allocated time.   If, for instance, the proxy had to arrive somewhere in your timeline at ten twenty six to join in battle with you and its alter self, but at six twenty six (on the time-line clock) it had used up too much energy, it could rest for hours or days, weeks even, while the Punjaniti recharges.   Then when everything is ready the Proxy could continue the journey in the shadow-ripple towards the event that was taking place at ten twenty six and whatever was due to happen then – would still happen then.   Unless something was done before the four hours of time-line elapsed to change the future.   An action such as the proxy taking you by surprise and annihilating you at, let us say seven fifteen on the time-line clock for the sake of the statement, not because seven fifteen has any relevance other than being prior to ten twenty six.  Then, and only then would there be a new event taking place at ten twenty six because it would be impossible for you to engage in combat with the Proxy or the Punjaniti if you are already dead.   The concept of the shadow-ripples and their ilk is that they are following in somebody’s time-line, not in real-time.  They are travelling in the past towards the future that in the main has already happened.   The time-line operator is simply reviewing everything that the creator of the time-line has done in their lifetime in sequence … and what is seen is shown in an actual time span.   If it takes the owner of the time-line five minutes to do up their shoe laces, then that is how long it will take for the chore to be completed, however the ripple-shadow operator can increase the speed of the time travel if they so wish, but if impatience causes them to accidentally miss a key point of the action, it is too bad … they cannot rewind time.

In retrospect, the time-line is a record of every second of somebody’s life that has happened to date, it has nothing to do with the time on a clock on a wall, or mantle piece, or an appointment time marked on a calendar.    A researcher travelling in a time machine such as a shadow-ripple cannot continue past the point in time where the owner of the time-line is currently residing, regardless of whether they be dead or alive in that time-zone.    In most cases the subject of the research is usually deceased, but cases such as yours are different.   Your current point of redisence is one minute past now.   But you should be several weeks deeper into your future.   This is all out of reasoning becasuse of the curent time distortions .   We will have to wait and see what transpires/

Should you be destined to do battle with the current version of the Punjaniti in twenty minutes of so, that twenty minutes of so is in time-line minutes, (real time minutes in this sitution), and if the proxy attacks you and kills you before the twenty time-line minutes has elapsed … then whatever was supposed to happen in twenty minute’s time  – won’t!   The shadow-ripple and the other time machines only work from the past to the future in time-line minutes.

At the moment the proxy is settling into its new role while it is waiting for the arrival of the current version which is due to attack you sometime in the next twenty four hours.    The proxy cannot wander around Earth searching for the current version, it is restricted to the confines of your time-line.   The time controllers calculated the date that you met up with Rosetta for the first time and sent the proxy back to two days beforehand where the proxy would then travel forward at controllable speeds until it arrived at a destination where it wanted to stop – and it will then expect to exit the vehicle to do whatever is needed to be done.  The proxy can travel past an attack if it so wishes, but if it does then it cannot return to that particular event – ever, hence the ability to control the speed of the shadow-ripple.   The proxy relies on its installed memory to know when to get ready for an attack, but it can stop the shadow-ripple at any stage should it wish to initiate a solo attack on you such as it has already done.   The problem it has doing this, however, is that it is not in complete sync with you and cannot physically harm you.   It can, however,distract you when the other version is attacking you and it is imperative that you know which one to battle.  You don’t want to waste time and energy battling with the wrong version, but you will have to work out which is which is a hurry lest the one that can kill you gets the jump on you because you are distracted by the other one.

The proxy was aware of the fact that it had several days of travel in the time-line to complete before it would make contact with its other version.   And in this situation would normally have considered resting at some stage earlier than the date of the first attack to conserve energy for the forthcoming battle; a chance to be fully charged when it commenced.  After all, neither the Proxy, nor the future Punjaniti, were aware how much energy was being used as a result of the time transfer.

However, when you went to the garage and made contact with the photograph the proxy decided to take advantage of what it saw as a serendipitous chance to eliminate you … and attacked you.”

“Did the proxy hide in that picture?”

“Not exactly, but he somehow managed to obtain a link in it.   We had placed a memory link to reinforce some of the things that I had already spoken to you about, so when you saw it would help you accept things a little bit easier.   You would see that I had been telling you the truth in regards to something that seemed a total improbability to you at the time of the telling.  But somehow the Proxy also obtained a link to it.   So when you turned up at the garage out of the blue it took the initiative and attacked you.   Of course he became terribly frustrated when he found that he had made no impact on you with the attack.   He was uncertain what had gone wrong, so instead of waiting, he decided to keep following you.   And when you went to the farm he decided to attempt another attack on you, but when he saw the stranger there he decided to seduce you to continue the search hoping that you would locate the statue before he destroyed you.   However once you decided to fight against his attempts to seduce you he went straight back to his plan to kill you and immediately attacked you, and, of course, he failed again.   But then he discovered that you had suddenly disappeared.   Eventually he was able to work out where you had moved to and tried for a third time to kill you … and again he failed.   This time he did stop to re-energise, and let his mind try to calculate what was happening while he rested … and this time he seems to be still in that mode.

However, this was the beginning of things going slightly awry for the proxy.   The proxy, at least at this stage of things, cannot communicate with the bona fide version in the future.   Communication, verbal or telepathic, was never thought to be a necessary requirement by the Punjaniti, because everything that the proxy needed to know to fulfill its mission was installed into the proxy as a carbon copy of the original’s mind.   Everything that the proxy was expected to do would be done as if it was the original itself that was travelling in the time-line.   Notification of success would be by the notification of your death in records that the Punjaniti had spies keeping a permanent eye on.   The minute your name appeared in the records, the Punjaniti would know that the proxy had achieved its goal … the proxy would then be terminated.”

“Why would he kill it?

“It would be redundant.  The proxy’s existence is an unnecessary drain on the bona fide version’s energy levels.   To keep the proxy active it requires the bona fide Punjaniti to share the energy levels it needed to survive and go about the tasks that were required of it … and that version of the Punjaniti is already sharing energy with its younger version … after all, they are really the same thing, but while the creature is residing in this time-zone, it is also residing in the future, therefore they both need energy to survive, but only one can collect it to share … the Punjaniti of the future.   In doing what it has, the Punjaniti is putting a huge strain on its own resources because of you, and as a result it will only be able to support short, sharp attacks by either the current version, or the proxy … and a lot less if they are both in battle simultaneously.   So it needs to eliminate you as soon as possible.   Remember, until one of you are defeated, the battle continues.  And as a result of all this energy use, the proxy and the current version will both have to be rested whenever the Punjaniti needs to be recharged, which will, most likely, be fairly regularly.

This is, of course, in your favour.   And another thing in your favour, that the proxy is only now becoming aware of, is that it isn’t travelling in a true time-line, but a shadow-ripple.   What I didn’t explain earlier is that a shadow-ripple is slightly out of sync with both you and your time-line, and, even more importantly for your safety, the version of the Punjaniti that it wishes to join forces with.   This was why the energy bombs failed to harm your friends, and why the creature didn’t harm you when it landed on you.   It could sense you, but it couldn’t see you … and it certainly couldn’t harm you because it is permanently out of sync with everything.    The energy bombs were detonating in the proxy’s time-zone, not yours.  Had you been watching you would have seen the bombs exploding, and the smoke that rose from the detonation; you would have seen that your friends saw nothing, but felt the rumble in the ground and heard the explosion which was nowhere as loud as it would have been in the proxy’s time-zone.  What you saw and heard were as a result of my actions and interference.

What you will have to put up with will be attacks from one version of the Punjaniti that has the power to kill you, providing you give him a chance to do so … and a second version that can’t kill you directly, but can cause you grief in other ways.   You can all see each other most times, you, the proxy and the other version, but communication will be a problem for the proxy and his double unless they can communicate in sign language.    This means you will have to quickly work out which is which; the one that can kill you – and the one that can’t.   You won’t want to be wasting your energy on defending yourself unnecessarily – but you must ensure yourself that you are defending yourself against the one that is lethal.

Mind you, the proxy can use a life-form, or an artificial intelligence life-force with access to a controllable body to do its work for it, either by attacking you, or using you to destroy yourself.    But having said that, the life-force, or artificial intelligence, has to be already within a one hundred yard radius to the proxy, and not have an allegiance to you that the proxy can’t control.   That was why the stranger’s mind was used by the proxy to make you believe the events between you and Mary were actually taking place.   He could not have used Martin or Mary for the same purpose.   This version simply does not have the power to override their loyalty.   The same could not be said about the current or future versions, however.  They can use almost anybody to their advantage.”

“But why would he play with my mind rather just kill me outright?”

“I assume that his priority was locating the statue, judging by the way he was using Mary to encourage you to continue searching and find the statue as fast as you could.   But you were strong enough to understand that something was trying to control your mind and you fought hard and regained control of it.   It was then that he changed his agenda and decided to kill you anyway.”

“Oh lovely.   Still, I don’t understand.   When he was messing with my mind, he could obviously see me.   But when he did try to kill me, how come I could suddenly see him, yet, for some reason he could no longer see me … but he still seemed to know where I was?”

“That was because I transferred your mind into mine and brought you over here to see what happened when the proxy attacked your small group … absolutely nothing. But, of course, you turned your head away too early and missed everything.   But you still heard the noises because I amplified them so you could hear them.  The time-line is recorded by the physical movement of the mind.   When I moved the mind it recorded an extension to the time-line, but the physical component, the body, was left behind.  The creature eventually picked up on the extension and followed it, but, of course, the mind is invisible to the naked eye, especially when it is residing inside my head … and my head is currently residing on a planet two hundred light years away.”

“And the proxy conjured up the strange behaviour by Mary in an attempt to entrap me in some way by obtaining the power to do so from the stranger?”

“Yes, very well done, Joseph.   Though it wasn’t actually Mary who was leading you astray, it was always the creature.    Mary was just the image the proxy conjured up in your mind to make things work for him.   Nobody else was privy to what happened because it happened only inside your mind.    Mary spent the entire event in conversation with Martin and the stranger.   Not one of them had the least idea of the mental anguish you were going through.   It would appear that the creature was gearing you up to pull out all straps to find the missing statue.   But I put paid to that when I disengaged you from your body and moved your mind over here.   He obviously needed that statue with the greatest of speed.   He must have thought that the statue was even more important than killing you.    He was willing to wait for that pleasure because once he had the statue he was under the opinion that you wouldn’t matter any more.   Earth would be his.”

“I just realised what you said that you did.    I am not still inside your head am I?”

“I am afraid that is not quite correct. Joseph.   I have simply tweaked your mind slightly to make you believe that you are standing there facing me to make you feel more comfortable.”

“So that really is my body?”   Joseph asked in a shaky, perplexed tone,   “Just how did you get my mind over here without by body accompanying it?”

“It is a power that I have.   For all intents and purposes the mind is simply energy. that co-operates with the brain.   At the moment it has been unplugged from your system and reconnected to mine.   I won’t complicate your thoughts anymore than I already have.   Think of it as what happens when you upload data on your computer to the clouds.   There is no real cloud.  It means that the data has been transferred through the airwaves to an unseen computer.   That is precisely what has happened here.   I engaged with your mind like I was linking into a computer and allowed you to see what was happening here through my eyes, again in a manner of speaking.   That also is how I unlocked some of your thoughts, and to make you feel a bit better, I wasn’t attempting to read your mind, which I can if I so wish, but in this case I inherited an automatic connection to your thoughts.   I am sorry if it embarrassed or greatly concerned you, however, I can assure you that I was not prying into your life, at least not on this occasion.”

“You seemed to know an awful lot about me,”

“We had to check up on you as we discovered your connection with the Punjaniti.    That is my job.”

“Well,”   Joseph said as a sigh left his mouth, “You have given me a smorgasbord of food for thought.

“Oh, there is more I am afraid, Joseph … much, much more.   But just not now, your friends are becoming concerned for you.   You are, after all, without a working mind at the moment and they are beginning to notice that.   We shall talk again soon.   Just remember to keep your guard up during the next few attacks and try to develop a way to identify which version is attacking you.   And remember that the seemingly less dangerous version of the Punjaniti can turn life-forms against you, so you may find yourself defending your life from more than one front simultaneously.”

“Talking about battles, if the future version can’t kill me, then I assume that I can’t kill him?”

“That is correct.   However, we are fairly certain that should you destroy the other version, the future version will no longer exist, and, therefore, neither will the proxy.   Now, your friends are waiting and they are becoming extremely worried about your current mental condition.   It is time to go.   We will meet again shortly.”

Joseph turned once more to look in the direction of his far away friends and indeed they did seem to be showing some concern for him.  Mary was placing her arm around him, as if to give him physical support, and on the other side Martin seemed to be doing much the same.   “What are they doing?”  He asked,  half-turning his head to face the monk.   “Why are they … ?

But before Joseph could finish his question his world began to spin again.   Suddenly he was back in complete darkness.    A darkness so black he dared not move an inch for fear of falling.  He was totally disoriented, he was confused … and then the nightmare began again.

Hands he could not see were once again coming out from within the shadows of complete darkness.   Hands with long, sharp. pointy fingers began to prod his face, his forehead, his cheeks.   Hands with arms that stretched out and out, and then began to wrap themselves tightly around his waist from the side, and he knew what would be next the minute that they began to snake their way up his chest towards his waiting, sweat drenched face.   Joseph was not going to allow it to happen … not this time.  He clenched each of his hands into a ball and punched them outwards into the air.   His arms now in a straight line with his shoulders, Joseph took a deep breath … then threw his arms sideways as hard as could to do as much damage as he could in order to regain his freedom.

But as he did, Joseph was in no way prepared for the outcome of his efforts … .

********

EPISODE 48

PART 10

As his eyes sprung open ready for the fight of his life; as Joseph’s arms ripped through the open air in his attempt to inflict the greatest damage possible to his assailants; as Joseph screamed out the most unnerving string of abuse he could come up with to those who were attacking him … Joseph was far from ready to accept the scene that now confronted him.`

“Get off me!   Leave me alone!”   Joseph screamed out loudly, his arms flaying in all directions causing nothing but discomfort and distress for his would be attackers who continually called on him to desist from his attack.   “Leave me alone, do you hear me?

“Joseph … Joseph … stop it.    Do you hear me?”   A vaguely familiar voice cried out through the darkness, but Joseph was not having a bar of defeat.   He was not going to die, not today.   They were not going to rip his face off this time.   He would fight to the death if necessary, he screamed.   And suddenly he thought that he was winning; the assailants let go from both sides, but that turned to disaster as the unexpected release of his wildly swaying body caused him to lose balance.   And as he rocked back and forth in his attempt to regain his balance, his eyes took in the face of one of his would-be assassinations … and Joseph froze in total confusion.

********

Joseph’s unexpected vocabulary and violent struggling, so out of character, frightened the life out of Mary and Martin who let go of him so quickly that their reaction threatened to send them all spiralling to the ground as they struggled to retain their footing.   But Mary wasn’t going anywhere that took her away from Joseph.   She twisted her body around and somehow placed her arms firmly around him and pulled him in as close to her as she could; her actions helping to stabilise their equilibrium.

“Joseph, oh, Joseph, thank god you are alright.”   Mary cried out as she squeezed him as tight as humanly possible.

“I don’t understand”, Joseph admitted, “why are you trying to kill me?”

“We are not trying to kill you.”   Mary replied, “Why do think that?”

Joseph went to explain about the darkness, the hands, the nightmare, and that reminded him about the monk and he soon found his words to be far too complex to express, mainly because the more he remembered, the less he felt he could explain.  Eventually he simply shook his head and closed shop.   “I don’t know.   I am sorry, I really don’t know

Joseph was clearly confused by the hurt tone in Mary’s voice as much as he was failing to understand exactly what was going on, but he was seriously beginning to believe that he had been completely wrong in his assumptions that he was being attacked by the demons of his nightmare.   Eventually he took control of the hands that were wrapped tightly together in the middle of his back, and gently began to unlock them before lifting her arms far enough away from his body to safely manoeuvre Mary’s body back away from him until he could see her face … and when he finally completed the task he was completely taken by surprise to find tears rolling down her cheeks.

“Whatever is going on, Mary … are you alright?”

“We were worried about you, old son.”   Martin replied on Mary’s behalf, his face, like Mary’s, full of worry and concern for his friend.   “You have been standing there like a stunned mullet for the past few minutes, and sweating like the proverbial pig.   Do you feel alright?   Do we need to call for the doctor?”

Joseph began to self-analyse himself, eventually finding no pain or illness.   “No,   I feel fine now.   The last thing I remember was a strange smell and I felt a bit nauseous.   What happened to me?   Did I pass out?”

“No, Joseph.   You simply froze to the spot.   We tried to move you to the house, but we couldn’t even drag you there, never mind make you walk.   It was like you were full of bricks and nailed to the ground.”

Joseph looked incredulously at his two friends for a second and began wondering about their sanity, when something flashed through his mind, though this time the images lingered long enough for him to interpret them as they projected themselves through the screen inside his head.   “Akerious,’’  he suddenly called out loudly, though meaning the words for his own mind alone, “so it is all real!”1

   “Joseph?”    Mary asked in a panicky voice which quickly made Joseph realise he hadn’t been prudent enough with his words as he would have liked to have been.

“Sorry, just thinking aloud.  Whatever it was that I smelt, it must have giving me a bit of a rush.”

“It does seem to affect some people that way, or so I have been told.”   Harvey added to the conversation.   “I have only seen it once before myself, and it lasted an hour.  Though, their reaction upon awakening was a lot calmer, they said that they felt like they had been in a deep sleep and felt totaly relaxed.   But no overall harm.   Though I have heard others have suffered longer and worse.   ‘Arkeriuos’, you say.   I have met him … I think.  A friend of William’s, that’s right.   A strange cove as I remember.   Dresses like a monk.   Even wears a hood over his head.   But he seems a nice person when you get to spend a little time with him.  Same person do think?   Do you know him well?”

“Yes, same person, or so it seems,”   Joseph agreed as he reached out with his hand, “Actually, it seems that I may know him more than I know I do, but, no, I don’t think that I know him too well; not just yet, at least.   Anyway, Joseph Jacobson, pleased to meet you.   Harvey wasn’t it?”

Harvey found Joseph’s phrasing of his answer slightly bizarre.   He looked at Joseph as if he was going to say something, but changed his mind and shook hands while his mind blamed it on the fumes, and dismissed the entire episode forever.

Martin also wondered at what Joseph had called out, but refrained from saying anything in front of the other two.  But he knew he would have to do so the first chance that he got.  He was one hundred percent certain that he didn’t mention Arkerious by name when he was telling Joseph about William Jones and the guardian.  So he wondered just how Joseph knew that he existed in the scheme of things?

“So your mind simply disappeared from the face of the Earth for a few minutes?”   Martin asked.

“It seems that way, Martin.”   Joseph replied without elaborating.

“Well you look fine now, Joseph,   Mary said, a huge, happy grin covering her face from ear to ear as she gave him another huge cuddle before shaking the water off her hand and arms as she pulled back,   “All you have to do now is dry out a bit.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry, Mary.”   Joseph’s face had gone a bright shade of red when he realised what had happened, and he was fully aware that it was that colour because he could feel the flesh burning.   Trying his best to divert any forthcoming comments away from the situation he used his hands to give Mary a quick squeeze of her hands, instantly regretting his decision, however Mary quickly defused the situation by giving him a coy smile as she wiped her saturated hands on the back of her dress.

“It is fine, Joseph,”   Mary said, her voice as soft and as pleasant as the smile that accompanied the words,   “It will dry in no time.”

Still, Joseph felt embarrassed by what had happened, and quickly turned his full attention back to Harvey to get everybody’s mind on to a different platform.

“Do you come here every day, Harvey?”  He asked.

“It feels like that some days.   Most days, but, no, not every day”   Harvey replied with a loud laugh, “I come here most days to collect the eggs and feed the chooks … the missus sells them at the markets, the eggs that is, not the chooks.   The professor would collect them one day a week and take enough from the day’s laying to keep the two of them going for a week.   If, there was an oversupply to his requirements the day that he took his share, he would leave them in a bowl for me to collect the following day.   I also do the lawn when it needs cutting, or do a piece of gardening should it be necessary, but outside of that I come here just to check it over in case kids or tramps have been trying to break in now that it’s unoccupied while the professor recuperates.”

“Harvey, when we were here yesterday, we saw a wild looking man peering through the window.   We came outside and chased him when he ran into the barn, but we lost him in the dark.  A real raggedy man; Filthy face, shaggy hair, caveman beard, could be any age.   Have you ever seen anybody like him hanging round here?”

Harvey looked at him quizzically for a moment then thought about it for a while before answering.  “You must mean Vittorio, the professor’s brother.  He fits that description these days.

“Vittorio!!   Both Joseph and Martin exclaimed in total surprise before Harvey could finish his sentence as the name suddenly exploded in their collective heads.   They were confused, why hadn’t Rosetta recognized him?  Was she not quite telling the truth, or had his appearance changed beyond recognition?

“Vittorio … you think that this was the man that we saw in the barn yesterday?   Surely not!   The man we saw was all dirty and dishevelled.  He looked like he hadn’t shaved in a month or more.   His clothes were a mess, his exposed face was covered in dirt and grime, his hair was all matted.  And his eyes were bloodshot and glazed.  He looked more like a hobo on a bad day than an archaeologist … certainly nothing like Indiana Jones.”

“That’d be him alright.   Never used to look like that before that night … always a perfect gentleman he was until then.  Had a beard when I first met him, but it was always clean and kempt.   I have never seen a man’s appearance change so dramatically, and in such a short time, overnight, in fact.  I expect that you have heard about the strange light that had appeared here at the farm a little while back … when the witches were supposedly running amok out here?

“Yes, we have heard some stories about it.”   Joseph admitted, as Mary and Martin nodded their heads in agreement.

“Well, Vittorio was inside the house while the witches were in there doing whatever it is that witches and warlocks do.  I don’t know if he was involved in their activities or not, but I doubt it.   He certainly wasn’t wearing a white robe like the others were; he was still in his work clothes.   I think he was there with them by accident, or they had forced their way in to the house not knowing he was there.  I have no idea what really took place in there, but Vittorio hasn’t been the same since he saw whatever it was that he saw that night.

“I thought that the two brothers were staying at the farm?”   Joseph asked, “I don’t understand that.   Wouldn’t they be expected to be there?

“Most nights, yes, but once a week they would go to the Rat and Mouse, have a meal and follow it with a couple of drinks; then get the village taxi back to the farm.   Just a break from a monotonous workload, the professor once said.   Missus O’Shaughnnesy who runs a B.N.B in the village made both lunch and evening meals for them that were delivered fresh daily by her brother-in-law, however the professor often had to forgo the evening meal at the farm.   The internet and satellite service at the farm was unreliable most days, so the professor often spent a night of two at Missus O’Shaughnnesy’s B’N’B when he needed a reliable service for his phone and computer communes with world experts in his field of archaeology.   As a result he had a hot, tasty, freshly made, meal, and a break from the farm several times in a week.   Vittorio, on the other hand had all his meals cooked by Missus O’Shaughnnesy and delivered daily, but they had to be reheated and lost a lot of their taste and freshness in the ancient wood burning stove, and, of course, they were rather lonely meals.   So the visit to The Rat and the Mouse was mainly for his benefit.

They still talked shop, but it gave their minds and bodies a rest from whatever it is that archaeologists do besides digging up long dead mummies and their cats and pottery.   This was their one night out away from their work, and everybody in the village would have known that the house would be empty.   But something must have happened to change their minds that night, and it would have caught the witches off guard.

“How do you know that Vittorio was there for certain, Harvey?   Where you there, or did he tell you that later?”

“I was there, but only just before everything suddenly came to a stop.   It was just after dusk, the moon was on the rise, and I had just gone outside to try to get a photograph of it as it began to merge with the trees at the side of the farm.   I like taking photos of the leaves and branches when I can merge them in with the moon.   They can produce some very atmospheric images, especially when the right shaped clouds join in.   I had only just gone out the back door when I heard the witches chanting.   It took me a minute or so to realise where it was coming from.   As I told the others earlier, I live at the bottom of the farm.”   Joseph , who had not been capable of hearing, or understanding, anything that Harvey had said earlier, looked to where Harvey was pointing and could see a row of houses that lined the far side of road that ran parallel with the farm, and assumed roughly the same total of houses resided on this side of the road,   “All the houses on this side of the road have gates that open up on to the farm.   The fence was originally put up to keep the cattle in, but they still managed to get out from time to time, so the gates were put in to allow the farmer and his helpers easy access to any point on the road that they needed to use to get the cows back where they belonged.   The cows have long gone, but the gates and the fence are still there and it makes it easier for me.   I can walk up here in less time that it takes me to drive up here, and I get my daily exercise to boot.   It took me a while to work out where the chanting was coming from, and when I realised that it was coming from the farmhouse I knew that there was something wrong … I was absolutely certain that the professor and Vittorio were not involved in witchcraft, though there are quite a few in the village that were suspected of being involved in it.

But, I digress.   As I was saying, I had a gate which gave me quick access to the farm, and I made my way up to the house to see if the professor needed any help as quickly as I could.   But I was about a third of the way across the field when the outside of the house lit up so brightly, so quickly, it gave me a start.   And then I saw the reason for the sudden brightness; a strange light was blasting straight out of the ground at the side of the house … and flying ever upwards towards the stars.

Then, as I continued my way to the farmhouse, this strange, loud, badly muffled, voice came booming out of the house.   It was so loud the words that were emitting from it were incomprehensible, like somebody yelling into a microphone that was stuck deep inside their throat.   I couldn’t understand a single word that was being transmitted through the airwaves.   Then, to add to the confusion, the entire inside of the house also lit up as bright as day, though I couldn’t see anyone through the windows.   The voice got louder and louder … then the screaming began … and despite the heat that was getting hotter and hotter by the second, the closer I got to the house, the stronger I could feel the cold shivers that were beginning to freeze my back and neck.   The strange, confused, feeling that ran amok, across and through my entire body, was terrifying.   I had all but reached the house by this stage and I stopped short in panic as the door suddenly flew open and three figures came running out.  Two of them, both dressed in white robes, ran in my direction, but veered off to the right before they collided with me, though I doubt that they saw me, they seemed too petrified to worry about me being in their way.   Most likely moved out of my way purely on instinct.    The other escapee I recognised as Vittorio, who ran off in the opposite direction and quickly disappeared into the darkness.

And as I watched Vittorio vanishing from sight, two soft explosions took my attention back in the direction of the witches that had run past me but a second or two earlier, only to see nothing but a wisp of smoke emitting from the ground.  What been burnt and what had caused it, I had no idea.

The screaming from the farm house suddenly dissipated, the light in the yard disappeared and the light inside the house suddenly returned to a more normal illumination.    But I had no idea what had happened. or whether the rest of the witches were still in the house or not, and I was curious about everything that had just happened, so I cautiously made my way up to the house and peered through a window.   But I was gob-smacked by what I saw, or didn’t see, to be more precise.

There was no sign of life inside whatsoever, which was a direct contradiction to the noise that had been emitting from the house less than a minute earlier.   There was no sign of damage inside the house, with the exception of light smoke, or perhaps it was fog that was rolling along the floorboards.   There were no flames, mind you, just this smoky substance … and just a lit up, empty, house.   I guessed that they had been using one of those fog machines for some special effect in their witch-crafting, or maybe their cauldron was still boiling away.   Though, to be perfectly honest, from where I was standing I could only see a small portion of the house, but before I got a chance to walk up to another window for a better view I could hear the police siren coming towards the farm and decided it was time to leave, so I did.”

“So you didn’t talk to anyone or go inside the house?” Joseph asked.

“No.   There was nothing to see in there as far as I could make out.   There didn’t seem to be anybody inside.  Vittorio was presumably safe… and there had been no sign of the professor.   I decided that the witches had realised that all of the noise they had been making would have been heard by half the village on such a clear and still night, so they had all jumped in their cars and headed off home.   What I had heard may have been them arguing about how much noise they were making.   If I had gone inside and there was something amiss, I may very well have disturbed a crime scene.   And if I waited for the police to arrive, I had nothing to offer them but aroused suspicion about my presence on the farm under the circumstances … so I went home.

“And Vittorio’s life went downhill from that stage?”

“It most definitely did.   The next morning he literally turned up on my doorstep in a state of disrepair.   At first I didn’t recognise him he was so dirty and unkempt.  And his clothes and body were producing a rather rank impression on my senses which I presumed was as a result of the previous evening.    God only knows where he had been.   I asked him for details as to what happened the previous night, but all I received was some rather unintelligible ranting about demons and ancient devil worshippers.   I gave up in the end and tried talking him into coming into the house to bathe.   I was going to give him some of my clothes to wear while my wife washed his, but he just wasn’t interested.   Said he had to go back to watch over the farm in case ‘it’ came back, whatever ‘it’ was.   Mind you, he demolished a hearty breakfast my wife prepared for him before he left.   She explained that she had heard on the grapevine about the police finding the professor in a comatose state, and thought that Vittorio may also have been affected by whatever had caused the coma.   But as soon as he had finished the meal he was off, and he has been coming back at the same time each day.   It’s lucky that we have an outside table at his disposal because his graces and manners aren’t exactly peaking at the moment, and he makes a fair mess for somebody accepting a fee meal.   I think that he spills as much as he eats, and I am not certain that he actually digests his meal it disappears so quickly.   We know that we will have to get help for him eventually if he doesn’t snap out of his strange ways shortly, but we are not going to have him committed into an asylum.  I am in complete agreement with my wife that what will help him the most is getting his brother back.   Besides, he’s not going to go to the hospital willingly, and nor can we force him to.   And if we were to report him to the police, well I doubt that they are capable of helping him.   They certainly can’t arrest him because he hasn’t done anything wrong as far as we are aware, and I doubt that they are in a position to make the right decision for his welfare.  We, my wife and I that is, are constantly scrawling through Doctor Google’s world to work out the best thing for him, but it’s pretty uncontrolled in there and we don’t want to make a mistake on Vittorio’s behalf.   In the meantime we leave him to his own devices.  Not much more we can do.   He knows that he is welcome to stay with us until his brother recovers.   I wish he would, actually.   We might finally get him to bathe and change his clothes.”

‘Yes, I suppose it would be hard for the average person to put the wheels in motion in a manner their conscience would be happy with.”   Martin noted,   “Fortunately for Vittorio I do have good connections with the right people.  As soon as we are finished with our reason for being here, I will get the ball rolling.   Vittorio will get the help he needs … and all going well, it will happen before the weekend concludes.  Providing we can find him, that is.”

“Well, thank you, Martin.   That will be lovely.”   Harvey replied, a huge surprised, but appreciative, smile on his face.   “My wife will be so pleased.”

“But first we must locate him,”   Joseph interjected.   “Is he here at the moment?”

“I haven’t seen him since he had breakfast this morning, but I don’t think he will be too far away.”

“I think that the sooner we find Vittorio, the sooner we can achieve a conclusion to our own mission.   Then Martin can begin to make whatever arrangements are needed for him.”

“What is your mission, if it is not presumed to be too much of an intrusion into your privacy?” Harvey asked, his tone clearly reflecting the arousal of his curiosity.

The tone, strength and volume of Joseph’s voice never wavered or changed beat as he answered.   “My instincts tell me that you can be both trusted and helpful in our predicament, Harvey, so I will tell you something that you must never repeat to anybody, and I do mean anybody.   We are strangers in the village and we do not know who we can trust, so we are taking a huge risk with you under the circumstances.   And for us to make you trust us I am afraid that, for a variety of reasons, I can only give you vague details.  The same applies to you, Mary.”   Joseph paused for a second – then smiled before continuing, “But you I do trust.”

“Thank you, Joseph.”   Mary’s face flushed brightly for several seconds, but she said no more lest she spoiled the moment.   This morning Mary felt more and more confident that she would achieve her task and get a lot closer to Joseph … and not just for Johann P Biggs.

“Vittorio may very well hold the key to what we seek, ”   Joseph continued, “in fact I feel certain that he does, but I am now also worried about his current ability to understand the urgency of the situation.   Our friend Rosetta is the daughter of Professor Tuscanni, Vittorio is her uncle … and, as was her father a week or so ago, she was attacked last night and left in a coma … and the coma was induced by something injected into her body by the attacker.”

“My god, both father – and daughter; why would somebody do something like that?   Will she recover?”  Harvey asked in surprise, shocked at what Joseph had just told him.

“To answer your second question first, we certainly hope so.   And both of your questions bring us to why we are here at the farm.   Rosetta’s father had found several very valuable items on his last expedition somewhere overseas, and he had brought them here to Trenthamville as somewhere he had considered safe to store them while he searched for a museum to house them permanently.   Now they are missing, and we need to find them to exchange them for the antidote for both Rosetta and her father.

Mary gasped at the realisation of what Joseph was saying about Rosetta.   She had not had an impression in her mind as to what may have caused her coma, but had a shock when the real reason was given.   And she got a bigger shock when it dawned on her just how deep in this mystery Joseph was involved.   That was a shock, and it certainly put him in new light in her mind … and Johann P Biggs now seemed justified in his decision to have him checked out.   What Mary had uncovered so far about this village and the Punjaniti was fascinating enough; the fact that there was more to come and Joseph was involved in all of it raised the adrenaline factor to a new level.   And once again, like Joseph, she seriously wondered what she had gotten herself into … and decided to let the story run without the need for interruptions, rather than ask questions at every opportunity.  But she couldn’t wait for her chance to get Joseph alone.

Harvey was also more than a little interested in what Joseph was about to reveal and he too decided to hear things out before asking questions.

“We are uncertain at this stage as to what was injected into Rosetta’s body,”   Joseph went on, “but we do know for a fact that her father’s condition requires a particular antidote which is not freely available in this country, or most countries for that matter.   Fortunately we have located a source of supply for the antidote, but it is only available to us in exchange for the items we are searching for.   However, there is a time limit involved in finding them, and we are quickly running out of time.”

Martin winced, his ears in disbelief, as Joseph continued to spill the beans on virtually everything they were involved in, in a manner completely contrary to his tirade on all things involved in this case upon their arrival at the farm.

“We searched yesterday without success and have come back to the farm today to try again to find it,”  Joseph continued, “but there is every chance that is has been hidden somewhere away from the farm which is why we need to speak to Vittorio to see if he has any idea where it has been hidden before we do run out of time.   But if we can’t locate it, and he doesn’t know where it is, well … .”   Joseph finished his explanation with a shrug … then had a second thought.   “Harvey, I was wondering … have you been inside the house since that night for any reason at all?

“No, never had any need to.   The hen shed and the yard are all that I need to have access to.   The house has been unoccupied for the past week and a bit, unless Vittorio has been using it, which I somehow doubt.   But whether or not he has, it is unlikely that there would be any maintenance work to be done.  And I am pretty certain that he won’t be in any condition to invite me in for lunch should I run into him.”

“Perhaps you should come in with us.” Joseph suggested in a quiet, but firm voice, “There is something that you need to see to help you understand the need for secrecy … and urgency.”

Harvey hesitated as Joseph spun on his heels without waiting for his answer and headed straight for the house, entering it as soon as he arrived at the front door.   Mary and Martin immediately followed suit.   Harvey, took a deep breath, rolled his eyes and followed them, immediately admitting to himself that he may be making a mistake in doing so.   And as he made his way down the small corridor, past the crucifix and its more recent gory additions and into the next room – he was certain his reservations had been justified.

“Holy mother of God,” he exclaimed upon seeing the dark, smouldering, occasionally crackling, pile of ashes on the floor, and the graffiti all over the walls.   “What is that mess?”   He asked in a shocked voice, “It wasn’t anything like this the last time I was in here a fortnight ago.   Is that where the smoke or fog that I saw was coming from?”   Has this been burning since that night?   That is impossible, surely?”

“We think that is has, Harvey.   Which window did you look through?”

Harvey swung around on his heels searching the room for the window that he had looked through.   “The second last one at the far end.”   Harvey exclaimed, pointing his finger with adrenaline induced vigour,   “That was the window I looked through.   I wouldn’t have seen anything like this from way down there.   I would be at too great an angle, but it is certainly was where I saw the smoke on the floor coming from.”

“You couldn’t see the carpet from back there?”   Joseph asked in confirmation.

“No.   All that I saw was just the smoke or fog that was floating by.  I was expecting to see people; witches to be precise, but I saw nobody.   What is burning?    How can anything burn for so long, and how come we didn’t smell it outside before we came in?”

“We are not certain, Harvey.’  Joseph said with a grin,   “One of life’s great mysteries I should imagine.   It smelt worse when we came here yesterday and we opened some of the windows, so maybe it has calmed down enough for us to not be concerned by it.   You will soon get used to it.   We seem to have.”

“If you say so,”    Harvey agreed, accepting Joseph’s reply with a dubious smile, his tone reinforcing his doubts, “but what is burning?  Do you have any ideas at all?”

Joseph looked Harvey straight in the eye.   His face was deadpan, his voice soft.   “We may be wrong, but we suspect that it might be the remains of some of your witches and warlocks that are smouldering away in there.   We have already retrieved some jewellery as worn by both sexes from the embers.   There is probably more in there, but it is currently too dangerous to attempt to rake through it.   It still seems to be active.

“Oh, my god … no … no way.”   Harvey blurted out in astonishment and horror at the suggestion,   “When I saw two them coming out of the door with Vittorio in tow I thought that the others had used the back door and had all escaped whatever it was that was frightening them.   I can’t even begin to imagine what could have happened in here.   In fact, at first I had half wondered if some elaborate hoax was being played out with the strange light and all, a bit of amusement by some idiots at the expense of the neighbours.  But now … ?   What happened to them?   What possibly could have caused that?   And why is the fire only on the rug, or carpet, or whatever the hell it was before the carnage took place?”

Mary, who had been listening to this conversation in growing disbelief, was horrified at the thought of dead people lying only inches away from where she was standing, charcoaled … or otherwise.   “Joseph what is going on?”  She suddenly blurted out.  The shocked look on Mary’s face, a look demanding to know the truth, but too horrified at the thought of the possibilities to want to know what the truth may hold, tugged at Joseph’s heart.

“We don’t know anything for certain.”   Joseph replied to both of their questions while looking deep into the fiery embers.   As he spoke Joseph was becoming aware of something that he really hadn’t been considering as he brought Harvey partly into his world … Mary!   He had only just now actually acknowledged Mary’s presence in the conversation.   He was used to Rosetta being there, and had momentarily forgotten that there was a replacement in their little group.   He realised that he would have to be more careful in future with what he said, and when and where he said it … or bring Mary completely into their investigation so she wouldn’t be asking awkward questions at the wrong time in front of the wrong people; especially when there was a good chance that they wouldn’t know who the bad guys were simply by looking at them.   Joseph now believed that there were those for their quest, and those against their involvement, both currently residing in the village … and they had no idea who was who.   Prudence would have to be their key word for the duration of their time left in Trenthamville.

To Joseph’s current way of thinking, Mary could quite innocently cause major headaches in respect to their quest.  Mary was smart and confident, and certain to ask questions as soon as something unusual or worrisome cropped up in a conversion.   And Joseph was aware that even a hint of a concerned reaction to something could prove dangerous to their mission if it brought his little group to the attention of the wrong outsiders.   For reasons that even he could not explain clearly, Joseph felt the need for his little group to keep a low profile if they were to expect a happy ending to their quest.   And with the way that the past forty eight hours or so had played out, he knew that it would be almost mission impossible for no more strange events to unfold before they were safely on their way back to London.

Joseph was certain that it would be much to his benefit if he could get Mary out of their hair completely.   But he knew he would have to keep her interested enough in the background of what he was undertaking to refrain her from asking what, exactly, was a clerk from a shipping business in London doing trying to save the lives of an archaeology professor and his beautiful comatose daughter.   How he had gotten away with it so far was a wonder in itself, he thought, and the only thing that made any sense to him was that Mary knew something was up, but her natural curiosity guided her to carry on as if there was nothing unusual going on and wait and see what happened.   Joseph hoped that that was the reason for her silence.   He did not want to go anywhere near the path that led to a thousand other possible reasons for her silence.   There was far too much at stake, far too many people’s lives according to the monk, for him to be found out as an impostor now.   Whatever her reasons, he would have to wait for her to ask him what was going on and hope that she would do so in a situation where he could persuade her to trust him and play along with his deception.   It was at this point that he accepted that because he had let slip the details of the burning carpet to Harvey to try to solicit more background information from him, he may now have to reveal more to Mary.   And it was also at this point that he had realised that he had remembered more about his encounter with Arkerious, than Arkerious had seemed to think he would remember.   But he knew when the Garden of Eden suddenly rolled through the inside of his head at a million frames per second he would have to be very careful of how he handled Mary’s questions when they came.  There was so much at risk if the Punjaniti continued to survive; so many more lost Shangri-Las to come.   Joseph knew that although he hadn’t really done anything wrong with living a little white lie, that would matter not one iota if she did not believe him and exposed him to Martin and Rosetta who were more than likely to dump him on the spot … and if that happened it would be more than just him that would suffer the consequences.   Joseph now truly believed that there were seven universes now praying for him to complete his part of the mission … and if the truth surfaced in the wrong way, then his part in the mission may be very difficult to achieve.   And Joseph doubted very much that there was such a thing as the right way for the truth to surface in this particular case.  The truth, in this particular situation, could prove to be very, very dangerous to everybody concerned except, perhaps, the Punjaniti.

Joseph could not yet fully remember all of the details that Arkerious had revealed to him when he removed his mind from his body, but he could remember enough, saw enough, to ensure himself that he was really meant to be involved in this battle with the Punjaniti … and he was equally certain by now that the search for the missing statue was only one tiny fraction of things to come before the battle was over.   He could not afford to be revealed as a fraud at this point in point, especially now that he understood in the scheme of things he was not a fraud, just not the person they thought him to be.   But, at the moment, both parties needed each other to achieve their separate goals, and a sign of distrust caused by a small, accidental, misleading of identities could bring a major disruption to the ongoing events.   He had to be careful and he had to be lucky.   The fact that Rosetta had refused to believe him when he said he wasn’t who she wanted him to be was immaterial now.   It was now obvious that it was meant for them to join forces, and too late to try and convince her that regardless of the misunderstanding, everything had turned out right, that they were now the team they had been meant to be.

Joseph also realised that bringing Mary in to this little group on a more permanent basis was something that he would have to weigh up very carefully, and perhaps discuss with Martin before making a final decision … without giving the real reasons as to why he needed to bring her into their quest: ‘the fact that he is not who Martin thinks him to be’.    And for him to tell Martin the truth, Joseph decided, he may as well let Mary reveal it because it was going to cause mistrust regardless of whoever revealed it.    Martin, of course, was also a thorn in Joseph’s side because he had misled both him and Rosetta.   He was here because he had become infatuated with a pretty girl and the promise of an Indiana Jones like weekend adventure.   Not because it was written in the stars that he was preordained to lead a search party, to rescue those that needed rescuing, and to do battle with a creature from outer space.   And yet, according to the memories that had been flooding into his mind since he had spoken with Arkerious, everything seemed to indicate, in a manner, that was exactly what he was doing because according to Arkerious, he had already travelled deep in that path … and was, apparently, now doing it all over again.

Joseph had a sudden thought;  If memories were returning before they had happened, then he must also be from the future.  But why would he need to be brought back in time.  It puzzled him at first because it didn’t make sense.  Then it hit him … he needed access to those memories that are yet to come to have an equal footing against his new enemy, and to minimize the advantage that they would now have had if he was just starting out, but did that mean there were now two of him in this time-zone?   Wouldn’t that cause a paradox? he wondered.

“Excellent thinking, Joseph.”   The sound of Arkerious’s voice literally made Joseph jump, and he spun around on heels in search of the hooded monk.   But he wasn’t anywhere to be seen.”

“Joseph are you alright?”   Mary asked with concern,   “You startled me.”

“I am sorry,” he replied quickly,” I thought that I heard something.”

“Oh, that’s alright then.   I was frightened that you were regressing back to where you were earlier.

“No, I am fine, thank you.  Sorry, I frightened you.”   Joseph’s cheeky smile disarmed Mary’s worried look and she gave a reciprocal smile in return.   But before she could say whatever words were forming on her lips Joseph’s phone burst into the Doctor Who theme.

“Excuse me, please.”   Joseph grinned as Mary rolled her smiling eyes at his theme song.

“Hello.”

“Please control yourself, Joseph,”   Arkerious said in a soft , slow tone,”  You can only hear me at the moment, not see me.   But for your own safety we need to talk telepathically.   Simply think what you want to say instead of opening your mouth to talk.   It will seem strange at first, but you will soon get used to it.   Actually, I will contact you later; when it is a bit safer to talk.   In the meantime, in answer to your concern, it has only been your memories that have been transferred back in time for the reasons that you thought they may have.   All going well they should stand you in good stead.  I will contact you again when you have retired for the night.   You will find by then that we have many things to discuss.”

“Everything alright, Joseph?”  Mary asked as Joseph returned his phone to his pocket.

“For the moment, everything seems to be getting there.”   Joseph replied with a weary sigh and a half-hearted smile.   “Now, Harvey,about finding Vittorio … .”

Joseph was finding it difficult to concentrate fully on anything following Arkerious’s unexpected call, but he was glad that he had received confirmation of the new memories.   The last thing he wanted was a flooding of nonsensical memories floating around the inside of his mind.   At least he had been forewarned of their eventual arrival in the internal post and he knew it would be best to listen closely to whatever they told him, and try his best to understand them.

And then he became so busy deciding how he was going to cope with mind to mind  conversations with Arkerious without opening his mouth at least a dozen times or more to talk, he failed to hear the two loud noises that took place somewhere outside the house.   Two completely distinguishable, different, sounds, that came from two completely different areas of the farm.

********

• LEGENDS: Coming soon to a blog near you.

Go to Episode 45