No Reply
Copyright (c) 2012 by Simon Haynes
The barrier guard groaned as the battered sedan pulled into the parking lot. Ben Hammond. Just what he needed. He straightened his shirt and cap as the car stopped at the barrier. The near-side window went down and the driver looked up, his eyes like sooty smudges in his pale, lined face. "Good afternoon sir," said the guard, leaning towards the microphone. "Would you show me your ID?"
The driver's voice burst from the speaker, distorted by the amplifier. "Cut the shit, Steve. I'm late."
"I need to see your authorisation."
The man in the car leant forward, his jaw muscles tightening. "I don't have any and I don't need any. Now lift the gate or I'll knock the bloody thing over." The car's hood vibrated as the driver revved the engine.
The guard shook his head. "I can't let you through without a pass. Mr Wiley is tightening up security."
"Steve, how long have you known me?"
"Six years, Mr Hammond."
"You ever seen me with ID?"
The guard shook his head.
"Lift the boom."
"I can't do that, sir. Mr Wiley ..." the rest was lost in the roar of the car's engine and the squeal of rubber. The back of the car fishtailed across the narrow drive, the wheel rims grinding as they slammed into the kerb. Suddenly, the tyres found traction and the vehicle leapt at the barrier. There was a thump and the car shot down the ramp, leaving the barrier twisted and bent in its wake. As the car rounded the bend, the driver stuck his arm out the window, middle finger held high.
* * *
"This is Ben Hammond bringing you Wierd and Wild, the all-night show which has everyone talking." Hammond caught his producer's expression, and gritted his teeth. Never mind the station's polling, he knew there was a big audience out there every night. "We're talking to Danny Rye about night lights. So Danny, tell us what happened next."
"Sure, Mr Hammond. Me and my brother were walkin' along the railroad tracks past the old factory. It was late at night. I know because we could hear owls and stuff."
"The dark would have been a clue."
"Eh?"
"Go on, go on."
"Well, there was this light, low and coming up fast. We jumped out the way and it roared past. When we stood up again it was gone."
"Most interesting."
"Do I get the prize?"
"No, you don't get the prize. That was the weakest UFO story I've heard in my entire six years at this station." Hammond glared at the producer in her soundproof cubby, then turned back to his console. "That was Danny Rye, careful observer number ninety-nine. Next time you see a UFO, Danny boy, check to see whether it's the 9:45 from Armadale before wasting your hard earned cash on a phone call." Hammond glanced at his call board. Empty, as usual. "Okay, time for a message from our sponsors, folks. Back with more in just a minute." He yanked the headset, threw it on the desk and strode over to the door. He pulled it open and leant inside, finger pointed at the producer. "If you ever put a dickhead like that onto me again I'll have you sweeping the carpark," he said softly, then slammed the door and stalked back to his chair. Behind his back, the producer stuck her tongue out.
Hammond replaced the headset and smiled broadly. "Welcome back, folks. It's UFO madness today, best caller wins a dinner for two at Spaceways. Spaceways, where the food is out of this world. And don't forget, there's fifty grand for the first person with a genuine UFO sighting. It's been six years, folks, six years and not one bite." Hammond glanced at the call board as the words rolled off his tongue. "And the next caller is Larry, from Belmont. You there, Larry?"
"Yes I am, Mr Hammond."
"What you got for me? Seen any good trains lately?"
"Well I don't know about that, Mr Hammond, but I saw a bright light in the sky last night."
Hammond didn't have to glance over his shoulder to picture the look on his producer's face. He could imagine it. "A bright light, Larry? Just the one?"
"Yep, just the one. It moved around a bit."
"It moved around a bit, did it?"
"Yep."
"Out near the airport, were you?"
"Nope, me and Gladys - that's me wife - me and Gladys were up in the hills."
"In the hills which overlook the airport?"
There was a long silence.
"Hello, Larry?"
The silence dragged on, interspersed with heavy breathing.
"Earth calling Larry. Earth calling Larry. Come in, Larry." Hammond winced as a loud whine came over the headset. "Turn the goddamn radio down, Larry," he muttered.
"Sorry 'bout that. Gladys was just tunin' in to your station. We normally listen to the other one."
"Yes, well thank you very much, Larry." Hammond pressed the cut-off button. "Our next caller is Jim, from Canning Vale ..."
"I haven't finished yet."
Hammond started. "W-what?"
"I said, I haven't finished. There was this light, see?"
Hammond stared at the console as his brain shifted into automatic. "I thought you'd left us, Larry."
"No, I want to tell my story and get a hold of that money you been talking about."
Hammond glanced over his shoulder. The producer was staring at him through the double glass window, an astonished look on her face. Hammond held his hands up, miming "What now?"
She shrugged.
Hammond turned back to the console and frowned. "Okay Larry, you've got my attention. Make it good."
"Well, me and Gladys - she's my wife - me and Gladys..."
Hammond sighed. "Larry?"
"Yes, Ben?"
"We've got the wife bit worked out, OK? Stick to the story."
"Sorry, Ben. Anyway, Gladys was most upset. She normally spends Tuesday night at the casino with her friends, but they'd all decided to go to the dogs instead. Gladys don't like the dogs, it's all over too quick. So we decided to go and look at the stars, like we used to before we got hitched."
Hammond stabbed the cut-off again, then shifted every dial, lever and knob within reach before resting his finger on a large, red button. He pressed it. Again and again.
"What's that clicking sound?" asked Larry.
"Technical hitch, Larry," said Hammond. He took his finger off the button and sighed. "Go right ahead."
"Anyway, me and the wife drove up the hills. It's a big road now, not like the dirt track it used to be. And our favourite place had houses on it, dirty great mansions facing the city lights. So we kept driving until we found a parking place. It was just a wide bit of road really, and there was all these cars there, rocking around and whatever. When we turned off the engine the noises were downright embarrassing, so I turned the radio up and we sat there holding hands like we used to."
Hammond tapped his teeth with his pen, frowning as he saw the callers dropping off the monitor one by one. Like his listeners, no doubt. Hammond sighed and reached for a notepad.
"So we was sitting there listening to some modern noise on the radio, watching the planes taking off and talking about the old days, when suddenly we felt hungry. We drove back up the road and ..."
As the caller droned on, Ben Hammond's ballpoint jerked on the fresh, lined paper, tracing a strip of neat, angular lines across the page. He was still jotting in spidery blue when he realised Larry had stopped talking. "So, let me see if I've got this straight, Larry. You went to the deli for a burger ..." he prompted.
"Aren't you listening to me? I said it was sandwich!"
"Ok, so you went in for a sandwich." The pen moved hesitantly, and a small triangle appeared on the paper. "And the guy was just getting ..."
"Girl. It was a girl."
"Right. She was just going to serve you
when something happened outside." More blue lines. "Now perhaps you could explain what it was."
"Well, there was this bloody great ... can I say that on radio?"
"Larry, until we fix my console you can say anything you like."
"Well, there was this huge flash, like lightning it was, only it went on for at least ten seconds."
Hammond shifted in his seat. "Anyone else see it?"
"That's the strange thing, nobody but me."
"Not really worth fifty grand, is it Larry?"
"Ah, but I'm ringing about the things what have happened since."
"Do go on," said Hammond as he filled in several empty squares with blue ink.
"Well, I'm a doodler, see?"
"A doodler?"
"I draw things when I'm talking on the phone. Like now."
Hammond's pen stopped mid-stroke. "We're two of a kind, Larry."
"Well, since I got home last night I can't stop the same patterns coming out, over and over."
"What kind of patterns, Larry. Alien writing perhaps? Shopping lists from Tau Ceti?"
Long silence. "Gladys said it looked foreign," said Larry defensively. "Like something from the museum, old writing and what-not."
"Send some in, Larry, and if it's an alien language you can have the money." Hammond grinned as he imagined Eileen's face. The lawyers had warned him about making bold statements on air.
"Will do, Mr Hammond. I'll call again next week." The line went dead, and three commercials started playing simultaneously, overlaid with the station jingle.
Hammond juggled with the console until he'd killed all but one commercial, then removed the headset and dropped it on the desk. He sat back with a sigh, letting his eyes close as his head nestled against the chair's headrest. He heard the door open, then approaching footsteps, deadened by the thick carpet tiles.
"What happened there, Eileen-the-technical-expert?"
"I have no idea. A glitch. I'll have maintenance go over it."
"I couldn't get rid of him. Bastard killed the show."
"Ben, Mr Wiley wants to see you."
Hammond grunted.
"Did you really ram the barrier in the parking lot?"
"Maybe."
"You're nuts, you know that?"
"My listeners love me."
"Wiley wants to talk to you about that, too."
Hammond's eyes opened. "What?"
"Ratings are in."
"And?"
Eileen looked away. "And Wiley wants to see you." She glanced at the console. "Break's almost over."
"Close for me," said Hammond, rising from the chair.
"You can't leave now! Ben!"
Hammond strode towards the exit. "Tell 'em I've been abducted." he called as he pushed the door open with his shoulder.
* * *
Eileen took a seat at the console and hurriedly played a recorded sign-off. She glanced at the notepad sitting next to the discarded headset, and frowned as she saw the intricate designs filling the page. She tore it off, screwed it up and dropped it into the bin.
* * *
Wiley was young for a station manager. He emphasised the fact by wearing his hair down to his collar, and underlined it by wearing a diamond stud in one ear. He was sitting at his desk, his feet up on the polished surface.
"Not looking good, Hammond." Wiley waved a bound report in the air as if fanning away a bad smell. "You came in below gardening."
"It's seasonal," muttered Hammond, gazing at the ribbed, white soles of Wiley's trainers.
Wiley took his feet from the desk and leant forward. "If they had fifty grand to give away they'd treble their listeners." He took a pen from his pocket and unscrewed it carefully, then opened the report. "Just look at this table," he said, pointing at the figures with the tip of his fountain pen. "If this keeps up you'll have an audience of three by Christmas. Even your friends aren't listening."
Hammond snorted. "I'm not giving away fifty grand, though, am I? Never have, never will." He reached for a pad on the desk. "May I?"
Wiley gestured. "Sure. Now, what you need is something fresh. Think about it over the weekend and let me know your plans first thing Monday."
Hammond drew half a dozen lines and connected them with deft strokes.
"Ben?"
Hammond looked up.
"You cost me a grand with that barrier stunt. Don't become a liability, huh? This station doesn't need liabilities."
Hammond nodded absent-mindedly.
* * *
Hammond was catching the late news when he felt a nagging ache behind his eyes. He looked around his one-room apartment, then eased himself off the bed and crossed to a low table containing a telephone, weaving between the dirty clothes littering the floor.
He picked the phone up and stared into space as the dial tone buzzed softly in his ear. After a moment or two, he clamped the handset to his shoulder and reached for the pen and notepad sitting on the desk beside the phone. He began to doodle, left-handed, as the phone purred into his ear. His headache got worse.
Gradually the page filled with a series of small lines: some joined at right angles, some forming rectangles and triangles and others little more than dots. When the page was three-quarters full Hammond took a deep breath and sat back. The pen fell from his aching fingers and the handset slipped into his lap, unnoticed.
After a moment he got up and crossed to the kitchen, where he swallowed a pain-killer and chased it down with a glass of water. Then he went back to the note pad and stared at the marks. They looked like some kind of South American design, Inca perhaps, or Mayan. The sort of thing a UFO nutter would interpret as a message from long-dead aliens. The sort of thing Larry had described.
Larry.
Christ, what had he done with the bits of notepaper from work? He delved into his pockets and found a wadded up sheet of paper from Wiley's pad. One side was covered with his own pencil marks. He turned the paper over and started. The other side was also filled in, only this time it was with the varied strokes of a fountain pen. Wiley's fountain pen.
As he stared at the squiggles on the pieces of paper, Hammond felt a sharp pain behind his eyes. He cried out and put his hands to his head, squeezing his temples as he tried to cancel out the jangling pain. The last thing he saw was the floor rushing up to meet him.
* * *
Hammond coughed once, then opened his eyes. He was lying on his side, stiff and cold. As his vision swam in and out of focus, he noticed the torn sheet of notepaper lying on the carpet two or three feet away. He reached for it and held it in front of his nose, willing his eyes to focus on the spidery lines.
And as the writing sharpened, he found he could read it. 'WE ARE COMING HOME,' it said, in lopsided square letters. He turned it over and stared at the reverse, covered with the ink from Wiley's fountain pen. 'WE ARE RETURNING'.
Hammond shot to his feet, stiffness and aches forgotten. He stared around for the other piece of notepaper, the one he had written the night before. He spotted it under the table and scooped it up then smoothed it out with shaking fingers. 'WHY NO REPLY?' demanded the message.
In the carpark, Hammond stared at the long scratches that raked his car from nose to tail. He shook his head as he got in, felt his breast pocket to make sure the notes were there before starting the engine. The exhaust note changed as he slipped the car into drive, and the garage reverberated with the growl of the engine as he pulled out into the traffic.
* * *
"I tell you I can read this shit!" shouted Hammond, waving the crumpled notes under Wiley's nose.
The station manager stepped back, a forced grin on his face. "Yes, so you said. Messages from aliens, beamed into your head."
"Our heads," said Hammond, holding up the sheet with the marks from the fountain pen on it. "You wrote this one. I had a caller yesterday who's bringing more of it in, too."
"It's just doodling," shrugged
Wiley. He retreated as Hammond came around the desk. "Don't do anything silly, Ben."
Hammond stared at him for a split second, then reached down and picked up the waste paper bin. He up-ended it on the desk and rifled through the contents, separating sheets of lined notepaper from ordinary waste. Then he smoothed each sheet of notepaper, keeping those which contained the alien script and discarding the rest. He scanned the first sheet. "Coming home," he muttered, then selected another page. "No reply to transmissions." He picked up the last sheet then looked up. "Oh, shit," he breathed.
Wiley stared at him. "What? What is it?"
Hammond held up a sheet of paper with shaking fingers, his face chalky white. "This."
"Well, what is it? What does it say?"
Hammond stared at the lines on the crumpled paper, then read the message aloud:
SIMIANS HAVE EVOLVED TO DOMINANT LIFE-FORM. SEND TEAM TO CLEANSE PLANET.
About the Author
Simon Haynes was born in England and grew up in Spain, where he enjoyed an amazing childhood of camping, motorbikes, air rifles and paper planes. His family moved to Australia when he was 16.
Simon divides his time between writing fiction and computer software, with frequent bike rides to blow away the cobwebs.
His goal is to write fifteen Hal books (Spacejock OR Junior!) before someone takes his keyboard away.
Simon's website is www.spacejock.com.au
* * *
Don't miss the Hal Spacejock series!
1. Hal Spacejock
2. Hal Spacejock: Second Course
3. Hal Spacejock: Just Desserts
4. Hal Spacejock: No Free Lunch
5. Hal Spacejock: Baker's Dough
Hal Spacejock: Framed (Short Story)
Hal Spacejock: Visit (Short Story)
www.spacejock.com.au
Simon Haynes also writes the
Hal Junior series for children