El Jeffe's startling announcement was greeted by a stunned silence, and then one of the officers in the audience got to his feet.
"Lieutenant Morales, sir. Would you please expand on that statement?"
He sat down.
El Jeffe had recovered himself a little. But he was still white-faced and drawn when he got to his feet.
"Certain incidents have taken place that caused me to suspect the intervention of a supernatural force. The information that Mr Johnson has just supplied seems to confirm it."
Lieutenant Morales was on his feet again.
"Can you describe those incidents, sir?"
"This is not the time to go into detail. I would like to confer with David before I make an official announcement."
There was a buzz of concern from the officers. They were not pleased with this answer. Angry mutterings were silenced by Major Castro, the senior officer present. He got to his feet.
"Castro, sir. Do you have a particular reason for confiding in an outsider before your own men? No disrespect intended, sir," he said, nodding in my direction.
El Jeffe had stayed on his feet and answered.
"Yes, there is a very strong reason for my decision, Major. Important enough that I delay, for the moment only, my natural instinct to turn to my own officers first. Men for whom I have the greatest respect and trust."
Castro replied, "Thank you, sir." And sat down.
I thought I should intervene here and rose to my feet.
"With your permission, sir," I said to El Jeffe. "I would like to address the meeting."
"Go ahead," he replied, relieved to be out of the spotlight for a minute.
"Gentlemen. I have not yet conferred with your commanding officer, and his original statement was as much news to me as it was to you. Yet, I was not entirely surprised, as it aligns with my own suspicions that a malevolent entity may have followed us to this airfield.
" If El Jeffe agrees, I would like to arrange a meeting with him tonight after we have finalised our plans for the defence of the airfield and start work on them immediately. That is our first priority.
" Sir?" I said to El Jeffe, and sat down, indicating that he should take over."
"I agree to that, and now down to work," he said. "We will meet later."
It was a day filled with discussions and frantic activity as we prepared our defences, and it was late in the evening before I met El Jeffe in his office. Jarvis and Joe accompanied me; the others were still working. Sol had proved to be a great asset with his immense strength in physical work, and his computer-like brain was useful for making rapid calculations.
After some brief exchange of comments on how the work was going, El Jeffe invited us to sit down and make ourselves comfortable.
"The best way to do this is for me to describe in detail the circumstances in which I experienced my first encounter with the supernatural and what followed."
He sat down opposite us and began his oration.
There had been a formal dinner in the officers' mess that night to celebrate my tenth anniversary as commanding officer of the base. It had been a lively event, and I had consumed a fair amount of alcohol, but I was by no means drunk or close to it. Still, I felt neither happy nor relaxed but carried a sense of foreboding, as if something unpleasant was about to occur.
I declined to follow his fellow officers when they adjourned to another room to smoke and drink brandy, as was their tradition, saying that I would follow them later.
The mess servants came in to clear the table, but I waved them away and asked to be left alone for half an hour. Taking a large swig of wine, I stared out of the window, trying hard to lift my mood.
Outside, it was dark and still, and I looked up at a sky full of stars. A shooting star crossed the heavens, a common sight in this region, but this one unexpectedly changed its course and seemed to be heading for the airfield.
It passed overhead, and the room was flooded with an eerie green light that lingered long after the 'star' had gone. I smelt the foul odour of gutted fish left to rot, and my stomach heaved, but that was only the start. I started to itch uncontrollably, and to my horror, I saw the shapes of hundreds of tiny creatures scurrying under my shirt and jacket, their passage marked by continuous lines of bumps moving under the fabric. I slapped my hand on one that had crawled from under my shirt cuff, and it burst like a bloated maggot, oozing yellow pus over my arm.
I am not a coward, but I began to shake, and to my self-disgust, tears streamed down my face, and green mucus dripped from my nose. Then I vomited all over the front of my dress uniform, and worse still, my trousers became soaked as I lost control of my bladder.
I became too weak to stand and lowered my trembling body onto my chair, my eyes locked on my half-eaten dinner. There was a breast of chicken untouched, and to terror, it began to move across the plate like a living thing, pumping out a trail of red blood in its wake that grew so large that it filled the plate.
I attempted to get up, but an unseen hand forcefully pushed the back of my head, causing my face to smash into the bloodied surface, filling my mouth with a foul taste that made me retch. Unable to breathe, I heard a voice hissing in my ear.
"Behold my strength, you struggling worm. I will come soon with my orders. Heed them well, or I will have my demons feast on your living flesh until you are dead. Now begone!"
El Jeffe's voice broke, and we all sat rigid in our seats, astonished and transfixed.
He signalled that he had recovered and continued with his oration.
"I lost consciousness, and when I came to, I found myself on my bed in my quarters. I jumped to my feet in shock and switched on the light; I was alone. When I looked down, my uniform was unmarked and dry.
I sat on the edge of my bed with my mind in turmoil.
Was it possible that I had dreamed the whole thing?
It took some time for me to regain my senses; never have I experienced such bewilderment, and fear that I was possessed by evil. Through my window, I saw that it was still dark, but I had no idea of how much time had passed. I decided that the only thing I could do was to return to the mess and find out what had happened.
There was a sink in my room, and I filled it with cold water and splashed it over my face. With trembling hands, I dried my face on a towel, and, straightening my uniform, I walked over to the door to leave. I turned the knob, but it wouldn't move, and a voice from above my head said mockingly.
"Where do you think you are going, worm?"
. . . . . . . . . .
Outside the desert, night was brittle and silent, broken only by the low hum of generators and the distant clatter of a maintenance crew wrapping up for the evening. A pale moon cast long shadows across the perimeter fence.
Suddenly, a sentry in a watchtower spotted movement—a lone figure scaling the fence near the southern edge, silhouetted against the dunes. He didn't hesitate. "Perimeter breach! South fence!" he shouted into the field phone, his voice urgent.
Within seconds, a klaxon blared—a piercing, oscillating wail that cut through the night. Lights flickered on across the compound, and men scrambled into their uniforms. A pair of military police jumped into a jeep, its engine coughing to life as it sped towards the breach.
The siren's blaring rang out through the Tannoy system in El Jeffe's room and drowned out his voice. We all leapt to our feet, the meeting forgotten, and raced back to the control tower. Inside the operations hut, the duty officer had yanked the receiver from the wall-mounted radio.
"Red alert. Possible infiltrator. All units to perimeter grid Charlie. Do not engage until confirmed."
El Jeffe tapped the officer on his shoulder.
"Thanks, Diego. I am taking over from now on.
The airfield's defence protocol activated: floodlights swept the fence line, illuminating the intruder mid-stride. He froze, caught in the glare, then sprinted towards the dunes. A flare arced overhead, casting the sand in ghostly white. Soldiers spread out, forming a crescent to prevent escape.
El Jeffe authorised a second siren—short, pulsed bursts.
The signal for armed responses is authorised.
The intruder seemed to recognise its meaning and rose from the ground, hands raised.
He was too far away to make out any detail.
Who was it ?