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  Tom shrugged. “I’m just reciting the stories,” he said, grabbing the pan from the fire and serving up four plates of hot beans for everyone. “Tuck in, guys.”

  The four of them ate in silence, apart from the odd crack and pop springing from the fire in front of them as the tinder burned.

  “What’s the time now, guys?” Madison asked, finishing a last spoonful of beans.

  Tom checked his watch. “Coming up to ten.”

  “Blimey, that late already? What time are we setting off hiking tomorrow?” Jess asked.

  “Let’s try to get going around seven. It’s going to be a long day,” Tom said, finishing his beer.

  “Well, I’m not going to get much sleep after those spooky stories you told,” Jess said, glaring at Tom.

  “Well you asked to hear them! Besides, they’re only stories,” he said.

  “Chill out, honey. When Tom pulls you in that tent and uses his British charm on you, you’ll be asleep in no time!”

  “Funny,” Tom said, picking up a small twig and throwing it across the fire at Madison.

  “Stop scratching my ankle with your toes, please,” Jessica said, prodding Tom in the stomach.

  “Hey, it was an accident, babe,” Tom replied, shifting in the twin person sleeping bag.

  “I can’t sleep,” Jess whispered.

  Tom cuddled up, kissed Jessica on the lips, then pulled away. “Hmm, maybe you need a bit more action to help you sleep?” he said.

  “Hmm, the only action I need is for my eyelids to close,” she whispered. “What time is it anyway?”

  Tom checked his watch. “One forty.”

  Suddenly, from somewhere outside the tent, a low-pitched growl was audible for a brief moment, followed by a couple of thuds, and the sound of a dry twig snapping.

  “What the fuck was that?” Jessica whispered, her green eyes wide-open with fear.

  There was another flurry of heavy footfall, followed by a loud, hollow, thud…thud…thud, as if someone, or something was whacking the trunk of a large tree with a baseball bat.

  “Shhh,” Tom whispered, raising his finger to his lips.

  Jess stared at him, her eyes fearful.

  Suddenly, there was a loud pounding on the ground right outside, followed by an eerie, low Neanderthal-sounding growl.

  "Is it a bear?" Jess whispered, petrified.

  Tom edged slowly to the end of the tent, and very quietly, started to unzip the entrance, bottom to top.

  A three-quarter Moon bathed the clearing and pine forest beyond in light, giving quite good visibility. Everything appeared normal at first, until his eyes focused on a large, dark mass which he’d first thought was part of a huge tree at the edge of the clearing. Were the shadows from the trees branches playing tricks?

  Then he saw something, a pair of eyes, white and green, eight feet or so off the ground. Tom felt his knees shake as he tried to fathom out what the object was that he was looking at. What the hell? He said to himself, as he traced the outline of a large, hairy animal, which was standing upright on two legs in the shadows of the tree. Could a bear do that?

  He quickly zipped the tent flap back up and quietly moved back over to Jessica. “I think it's a bear, we…we need to stay calm, don't move,” he whispered nervously, while reaching into the side pocket of his backpack for his hunting knife.

  Suddenly, there was another growl, this time much louder, and coming from just outside the tent. The growl was followed by the sound of material ripping…tent material. And then a blood curdling scream pierced the night air.

  “Fuck, that's Madison!” Jessica screamed.

  “Jesus,” Tom replied, gripping the knife tighter in his right hand. “We need to leave the tent. When we do, I want you to run. Run for the car and don’t look back! Here’s the keys, get in, lock the doors, and wait for me,” he whispered.

  Madison screamed again, but this time the scream was different, more muffled, and weaker.

  Tom unzipped the tent flap and he and Jessica crawled out, a stench of rotting flesh greeted them as they inhaled the cool night air.

  The scene in front of them defied all rationality. A huge, muscular creature, covered in matted, brown hair and a large ovoid head, was standing upright, its arm held out, and its hand gripping Madison around her neck. Madison’s legs were dangling beneath her, frantically kicking the air.

  “Run for the car,” Tom shouted to Jess, as he crouched, frozen to the ground at the sight in front of him. His brain was telling him it had to be a bear, but his eyes were looking at something different.

  Jessica scrambled off in the direction of the car, her hands across her mouth, as she tried to stifle her cries.

  The creature cocked its head over to one side, and stared directly at Tom, its green eyes appearing luminous under the bright Moon. A sickening crack followed, as it snapped Madison’s neck with one quick jerk of its huge, hairy hand.

  Then, from the side of the tent, Conner appeared, holding a thick piece of tree branch, which he used to whack the creature across its neck.

  No way, Tom thought, as he instinctively ran over to help his friend. He plunged the hunting knife he was holding into the creatures flank, but its hair was so thick he had no idea if the blade had gone in.

  The creature twisted its upper body towards Tom and let out an ear-piercing, guttural scream that made Tom’s neck hair prick up in sheer terror.

  The creature then yanked the knife out, grabbed Conner, and proceeded to batter his head hard against the ground. Conner didn’t stand a chance. The creature was mercilessly smashing his head and torso against the ground as if he were a rag doll.

  “Run…fucking run, mate,” gurgled Conner, from his bloodied mouth.

  The creature then twisted its upper body towards Tom and let out another ear-piercing scream that sent an icy shiver racing up Tom’s spine.

  Tom glanced towards the truck, which was in darkness. There was no sign of Jessica. He hoped she’d managed to get inside. He was about to run in the direction of the parked vehicle, but feared he wouldn’t make it, so he turned and sprinted as fast as he could towards the river bank, leaping into the fast flowing river as he reached the edge, without looking back.

  He winced in pain as the freezing water enveloped him, the fast-moving river carrying him downstream.

  CHAPTER 3

  SEARCH FOR EXTRA TERESTRIAL INTELLIGENCE (S.E.T.I)

  Mountain View, California

  September 17, 3 A.M.

  PROFESSOR FREDERICK BECK was seated in front of a large array of computer monitors, drinking a mug of coffee that had gone cold about an hour earlier, when the screen to his left, monitoring close-Earth radio signals started going crazy.

  Beck, who’d been volunteering his time at the SETI institute for the last thirty-six months, spun his leather chair towards the screen to take a better look, spilling half the tepid contents of his cup in the process.

  The screen confirmed a high-frequency burst signal, which wasn’t in the usual frequency range. A signal that hadn't been detected before, and importantly, one that had been filtered out against the randomised, natural signals that occur in nature. He pulled his chair closer and stared at the monitor in disbelief. Not since the Wow signal had he seen anything that looked like this before. The signal was repeating and artificial in nature.

  Beck was still a young physics undergrad when the Wow signal, a strong, narrowband radio signal, was received on August 15, 1977, by Ohio State University’s Big Ear radio telescope in the United States, which was at the time used to support the search for extra-terrestrial intelligence. The signal appeared to come from the constellation Sagittarius and bore the expected hallmarks of extra-terrestrial origin, but unfortunately it was never detected again.

  A number of hypotheses were advanced as to the source and nature of the signal, but none of them achieved widespread acceptance.

  Atmospheric twinkling, or a rotating lighthouse-like source, a signal sweeping in frequency,
or a military source had all been possible candidates for the signal.

  The theory Beck had preferred, if the signal wasn’t genuine, was that it had been an Earth-sourced signal that simply got reflected off a piece of space debris. Could the signal they were now looking at be the same?

  “Lucy, you might want to get over here, now!” Beck said, calling his colleague Dr Lucy Davies.

  Lucy who was studying some gamma ray burst data at the opposite end of the room, looked up and removed her reading glasses. “Say again?”

  “We’ve picked something up. You need to see this,” Beck shouted from the bank of screens.

  Lucy dropped the paperwork she was holding, rushed over and sat on the chair next to Professor Beck.

  She stared at the screen for a short while before whispering, “Double wow!”

  Professor Beck started frantically hitting the keyboard in front of him. “I’m filtering out all the usual Earth-based signals and natural suspects now,” he said, hitting the Return key.

  The monitor turned black briefly, equations and text streaming down the screen, before it returned to the pulse graph showing the signal, its strength, and frequency, the data displayed at the bottom of the screen.

  “Filter it further to locate the source,” Lucy said, pushing her long dark hair behind her ear, her brown eyes darting between the screen and Professor Beck.

  “I'm on it,” Beck said, tapping away at the keyboard.

  The SETI software started tracking the signal, analysing Earth’s closest stars first, starting with Proxima Centauri, Rigil Centaurus and Barnard’s Star, before moving onto the more distant stars. The screen suddenly went blank and an error message flashed up, before quickly vanishing again.

  Dr Lucy Davies glanced at the professor, who was looking at the screen, mildly confused.

  Another message popped up –

  RECALCULATING SIGNAL SOURCE.

  The screen flickered, before the message – Signal source located, scrolled across the screen.

  “And,” Lucy said, as if the computer were teasing her.

  Source - Mount Shasta, Cascade Mountains, Northern California, U.S.A.

  “What the hell?” Professor Beck whispered, staring at the screen, his jaw dropping open in disbelief.

  “We need to get ATA on to it, and call NASA to get the signal verified,” Lucy said, shaking her head, referring to ATA, or the Allen Telescope Array, a radio telescope array situated at the Hat Creek Radio Observatory, some 290 miles northeast of San Francisco, dedicated to astronomical observations and a simultaneous search for extra-terrestrial intelligence.

  “Right away,” the professor said, picking up the phone on the desk in front of him, and hitting the direct dial button.

  CHAPTER 4

  TOM SWAM TOWARDS the river bank and clawed at the muddy grass as he dragged himself out of the icy water. He had no idea how far the river had taken him, but he guessed it must have been half a mile at least. Clear of the water, he rolled onto his back to catch his breath, panting with exertion. He had to find Jessica, and wondered how far from the road he was. His head spun with questions, questions he didn’t have answers to.

  The billions of visible stars twinkled in the crystal clear night sky above. Alnitak, Alnilam and Mintaka, the three bright stars that made up Orion’s Belt were particularly noticeable. Tom had studied the triple star system for one of his projects. Although the stars were some 700 light years from Earth, they were a hundred-thousand times the luminosity of the Sun, hence their brightness.

  The fear from what he’d just witnessed flooded back into his head like a tidal-wave. Could he really have just seen a Bigfoot? Or had it been a large, crazed bear? He felt confused, unsure of what he’d really witnessed. Tom tore his watery eyes away from the shimmering stars and looked around the river bank and dark woods beyond. Had the creature stalked him? Was Jess still alive? “Fuck!” he whispered under his breath, as he got to his feet, rubbing his arms and hands together in a vain attempt to warm up.

  All his learning and research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he’d studied physics after deciding to head to the U.S.A. once he’d completed a law degree in the U.K. hadn’t prepared him for this. He was planning for a future career in planetary science and his main interest, the search for exo-planets, particularly planets capable of harbouring life outside our own solar system. He had an open and inquisitive mind, but his studies and research had never prepared him for an encounter such as this. It was extraordinary, he thought, as he shivered and ran towards the tree line in search of the road.

  Jessica was shaking uncontrollably and huddled down in the foot-well of the passenger seat inside the SUV, too scared to look out the window. Not that she could see much through the dark, tinted glass anyway. What the hell had just happened? She couldn't fathom what she’d just witnessed. The last image she had was of Madison, being held by the neck by what? Had it been a bear or something that shouldn’t exist?

  She felt herself hyperventilating and covered her mouth with her hands. Concentrate on breathing, she told herself as she felt another wave of panic wash over her. The creature was still out there. What if it could smell her? She didn’t want to die. Not now, not like this, surely to God.

  Jessica felt her heart rate quicken, and then she blacked out.

  Tom reached the tree line, stopped, peered into the darkness beyond the trees, and listened. Apart from the distant hoot of an owl, the forest was quiet. He thought back to the journey up, and tried to form a picture in his mind of the Sacramento River, and the road up to the campsite. The river had been on their right side on the route up. Thankfully, he’d exited the river on the correct side. He headed into the woods, moving slowly in a direction that should take him towards the road.

  Tom had been walking for around twenty minutes when he heard something; a rustling, and a twig snapping somewhere in the forest. He froze, his heart pumping in his chest like a bass drum. He listened, trying to determine if it was just an ordinary forest animal or a larger creature. The forest fell silent again, unusually silent. He waited for five minutes or so, remaining motionless, but the sound didn’t return. Petrified and cold, he moved forward as stealthily as he could, over the dry forest ground.

  Another twenty minutes walking and he saw a strip of light through the trees. He squinted and focused on the strip, before realising it was the moonlight reflecting off the surface of the road. Thank God, he thought, as he moved as quickly as he dared through the trees, crossing the one-hundred feet or so distance to the road. He made it, scrambled down a small bank, and stepped onto the asphalt. As expected, the road was deserted, and the dark forest either side freaked him out. But at least he felt a little safer all of a sudden, and thankfully the road was lighter, the surface lit by the moonlight from the full Moon above. He checked the time; it was 03.40. It was easy to work out which way to go. The road was on a slight incline, and he knew it led down towards the town of Shasta and up towards the campsite. He couldn’t leave Jessica alone, so headed up, hoping she was still safe, and waiting for him in the SUV, somewhere near the campsite entrance.

  CHAPTER 5

  NASA AMES RESEARCH CENTER

  Moffett Field, California

  September 17, 6 A.M.

  NASA EXOPLANET SCIENTIST, Professor Hans Willems, picked up the phone. He was seated at his desk, just finishing a report on the latest Earth-like planet that NASA’s Kepler spacecraft had discovered orbiting Proxima Centauri, a star just 4.25 light-years away. The newly-discovered exoplanet was Earth-like, and orbited within its sun’s habitable, or goldilocks zone, the distance from its star where life can comfortably exist. He was about to go home for the evening, but his curiosity got the better of him. “This better be good,” he said, upon answering the phone.

  “Evening Hans, its Fred over at SETI,” Professor Beck said, clearly excited about something.

  Professor Willems listened to his colleague as he explained what the SETI systems appear
ed to have picked up, the frequency and apparent source of the signal.

  “Are you sure about this?” Willems asked, suddenly forgetting about the ‘date night’ he’d arranged with his wife of eighteen years.

  He swivelled his chair forty-five degrees and rolled it over to the desk situated below the bank of computer monitors fixed to the wall opposite and pulled the wireless keypad towards him. He keyed in a code that allowed him to use NASA’s computer systems to analyse the signal, its source, and any other interesting data.

  As NASA’s Titan supercomputer crunched the data, Willems considered the ramifications if the signal was genuine. Before he had time to think about the protocol following the detection of a signal from outer space, the screen in front of him started streaming data, confirming signal source, strength, and frequency. It’s chances of being a naturally occurring signal, placed at 0.012%.

  Willems stared at the screen, his eyebrows raised, his jaw slowly dropping open.

  Tom rounded a bend in the road and caught glimpse of the wooden totem poles that marked the gated entrance to the campsite. Pine trees stretched out either side like a solid wall in the darkness. When he finally reached the entrance to the campsite, his nerves were frayed, and every sound that emanated from the forest sent a shiver down his spine. He hadn’t seen any vehicle lights on the road during his trek up through the forest and figured that Jessica must still be here unless she’d driven off whilst he’d been in the river, which was possible.

  Tom crouched down by one of the large totem poles and peered into the camp site area, hearing the river flowing by in the distance. Apart from an early morning breeze rustling through the pine trees, all was still. He needed to move farther into the site to get a proper view of the car park area off to his left. He crept in, glancing every few seconds to his right, where the attack had taken place an hour or so earlier.