“This place doesn’t have a name, ma’am. We’re just a shell of a town, a representation of middle America. Come on into the office, there’s chairs there where we can sit,” invited Earl.

     Once they were settled, Earl said, “Why don’t you let me tell you a story before you start asking questions. Is that all right with you?”

“I guess. Sure.”

“First, let me ask you this: how old do you think I am?” asked Earl, turning his head left and right to let Sybil get a good look at him.

“Maybe between twenty-five and thirty-five?” she answered.

“Maybe if it was 1951. If we count from my actual birthday I’m eighty-nine years old.”

“That’s bullshit! There’s no way,” Sybil exclaimed, then saw the shock in Earl’s eyes. “What?” she asked.

“Pardon me for saying so, ma’am, I’ve just never heard such talk from a lady before.”

“Earl, it’s 2014, everyone talks like this. I suppose it’s still not appropriate for all occasions, but it is common usage. I apologize if I offended you,” Sybil said with a chuckle, still not ready to believe anything Earl said.

“If you say so, ma’am.”

“Can the ma’am stuff, my name’s Sybil.

“Yeah, ma...Sybil. Anyway, I was born in 1925,” he said, pulling out his wallet and extracting a card that he handed to her to inspect.

     It was a paper drivers license issued in 1949 to an Earl Parker of Las Vegas, Nevada showing his date of birth as October 18^th, 1925.

     Seeming relieved to unburden his story Earl continued. “I suppose you could say that I’m lucky to have lived such a long life, but what we do here ain’t living, it’s like some kind of really bad dream. Some of us have been here since 1951, others have trickled in since then, just like you. They come, some are lost, but most are summoned.” .

“Summoned? But...”

“Let me finish, or at least try. You never know who might.... Anyway, as I was saying, I was here in 1951 when the first Atomic Bomb was lit of heref. Where we are is the fake city that the engineers built to see the effects of an atomic explosion on a town. Where we’re sitting is less than five miles from where the tower was where they did the first atomic detonation at this site."

     Earl could see the questions building behind Sybil's changing expressions. “I know, you’re wondering how you and your car got here. The answer is pretty unbelievable. Let me ask you this, did you see anything strange before you ended up here?”

“I did. I saw a golden glow, and the air got still even though I was driving at highway speed. What was that all about, Earl?”

     Earl was silent for a few moments, then said, “You were collected. Every now and then, people are collected from isolated places not too far from here. They are brought here for new blood. That's why you were brought here,” Earl concluded.

“For what purpose? Why were you and Tom manikins until I came inside?” Sybil asked emphatic to get to the bottom of at least that mystery.

“We really have no real existence at all. We just are. It’s only the rare times when someone new stumbles upon us are we real. But sure as death, we’re all just existing, our souls somehow feeding something the first atomic explosion brought to life. It’s like a hole into Hell was opened and brought back one of its denizens of evil."

     Earl leaned against the fake soda machine and rubbed his chin and what looked to be day old stubble as he tried to make sense of it all.

“On the rare occasions when we’re all alive, like when a car full of people, or the rare busload is either summoned or makes a wrong turn when they don’t see the warning signs, we talk about why we’re here, and how we just might get away from this place between us, but not very often. The trouble is that once new residents are assimilated into the population here, they also disappear from sight, only to regain corporeal form when someone new arrives."

     Sybil held the urge to call the man a liar at bay and kept silent as he continued his explanation.

“That golden glow is the only sign of whatever that first atomic explosion pulled out of  Hell. We seem to live forever, and in some ways that’s a blessing, but to only speak, feel and see others when it’s necessary to lure others into staying is no life at all. Whatever it is, it’s slowly sucking the essence, the life force out of each of us. I can feel it even when I’m not physically here. On the rare occasions when we do see a number of us at the same time, we lose someone who we never see again. I figure they just ran out of life force and perished once and for all.”

     Fantastic as Earl's story was, it made too much sense to Sybil's scientific mind. In spite of her building fear, Sybil's curiosity had returned. In a tight whisper Sybil asked, “Describe for me what happened that January day in 1951, Earl. What happened when that first atomic bomb went off?”

     Earl was quiet. He then  took a deep breath and slowly let it out. After vigorously scrubbing his eyes, Earl spoke. “After that first blast of a one hundred tonnes of TNT everyone was psyched to see if we would really have detonation of that first atomic device. It was all top secret back then, so we let it off at night."

     As the man from another time relayed his tale, Sybil saw the images in her mind from old World War II photos and videos of news reels from the era.

“I’m sure there’s film of that first detonation, the first explosion was amazing. But what no one could figure out was the lingering glow after the light dissipated? Damned if the tower holding the bomb was still standing out there all by itself, but with everything within a half a mile was flattened! The platform was glowing in the dark, not really lighting everything up, but just glowing where that bomb sat before detonation."

     The impossibility of any structure surviving even an old Atomic Blast at ground zero gave Sybil an unwanted chill. Unconsciously, she folded her arms about her chest.

“I was part of the motor pool at the time, not one of the eggheads. I did go to college for a while, but quit to enlist in the war. Since I could 'speak egghead', I got assigned to drive them around. They were going crazy trying to understand why the tower was still standing. They wouldn’t let anyone near there until the morning."

     The scientist in Sybil was starting to overcome the part of her that wanted to run from this place screaming. Now, questions were beginning to form. Questions that were burning for answers.

“At first, they sent out a couple of guys in those radiation suits with those... things...? Geiger counters, that’s what they were. They were testing for radiation. They went out to the edge of the blast zone and said it was 'hot'. But the closer they got to that tower, the lower the radiation got until it just dropped off to nothing....”

     Curiosity caused Sybil to burst as she interrupted, “How was that possible?”

“Hell if I know, ma’am, beg your pardon. No one else did either! The whole base was locked down and the Army was called in to guard the fence. They didn't let anyone in or out for over a week! Everyone was wigged out and then people started to go missing....”

“Missing? Missing how? Like you and Tom were missing? Turned into life size dolls or store manikins?” Sybil snapped.

“No, something worse. They disappeared, then turned up days later looking like all the moisture was baked out of them or something sucked the very life out of them; which is exactly what we found out it was. After a while we all knew exactly what it was, and unfortunately it knows far too much about us as well.”

“You act like it’s some sort of malevolent life form, Earl. What is it? Where did it come from?” Sybil asked, wanting to get to the bottom of the mystery, all thought of the wedding in Reno completely forgotten.

“Can you leave the station? Or do you disappear into that manikin shape?”

     Earl laughed. “I can if you take me. None of the cars you see here are able to drive, they’re junkers used to test the effects of shockwaves. Matter of fact, even these buildings are all fake. They were saved from being destroyed by the same thing that’s sucking the life out of all of us! I guess as a cruel joke or more than likely, bait for people like you. Exactly where do you want to go?”

“I want to see this tower. It’s obviously the center of what’s happened here,” Sybil explained. “Has anyone explored the area over the years?”

“No! Not after that first explosion. Whenever anyone goes near the thing, they  feel like something’s eating them alive!” Earl replied.

“Let’s see just how close we can get. Are you game?” Sybil asked with a smile.

“Sure thing. Hey Tom, I’m taking her over to the tower,” Earl said, raising his voice.

“Don’t make me no never mind. Your funeral,” said Tom with a backward wave.

     Earl stopped Sybil with a hand on her arm, and said, “It’s not going to be pleasant. Actually, it’s going to make you feel like warmed-over garbage; and to be perfectly honest, it might kill you outright.”

“Is that what happened to others when they tried to get near the tower?”

     Earl's bushy brows furrowed as he said, “No. Nobody wants to go near there thinking it will cut short whatever time we have left. Some have tried, but what happened to them wasn’t pretty. Are you sure it’s what you want to do?”

     With new found courage Sybil barked, “I’ll be damned if I’m going to stay here! I'm not waiting around to become some kind of dummy with no existence other than when some hapless victim shows up. Truth be told, I’m dying to get to the bottom of what’s going on here.” With that said, Sybil headed out of the garage towards her car. Looking back at Earl she snapped, "You coming?"

****

     As they drove back through town with Earl giving directions, Sybil observed there were no other living souls on the streets.

“Kind of quiet around here,” she remarked.

“Tom’s already gone, I guess the word for it might be. The only reason I’m still here is because you’re here,” said Earl.

    Long after the strange town vanished over the horizon, Sybil began to feel something strange.

“Do you feel that?” she asked.

“What? Oh, that. It’s going to get worse the closer we get. We’re only a few minutes away, if you look off to the right you can just see the top of the tower,” he said, pointing.

Startled Sybil asked, “Is that a house or something on top?”

“Yeah, that’s where the bombs are, it keeps them out of sight until detonation.”

     All of a sudden, the road they were driving on came to an end. There was a broad expanse of flat ground with noting to be seen but the tower’s structure off in the distance.

     Sybil stopped the car where the blacktop ended. “Is the ground ahead radioactive?” Sybil asked.

Earl shrugged, “Not that I know of.”

Her eyes narrowed Sybil inquired, “You said after that first explosion, the tower was intact but everything around it was destroyed?”

     Earl nodded looking out toward the tower in the distance, mesmerized. He then shivered as if shaking off water from his hair and said, “Nobody knew what it was or what had happened. But immediately after the explosion and that glow, people began to act strangely. They moved everything away from the tower and every night there was the glow around it like it's radioactive or something. The Atomic tests went on as usual, but no one ever mentioned the tower again. Everybody acted like it wasn't there; 'out of sight, out of mind'."

     Sybil leaned over the steering wheel to get a closer look only to be thwarted by built up dust on the windshield. Over the sound of the activated wipers Earl continued on.

“Wasn’t long before people began to feel the effects of whatever kept the tower from blowing up. We all felt like we were being drained of energy. Not too many ever mentioned it, I didn’t either. At first, I thought I was just being run ragged and that’s why I was tired all the time... then things started to change.”

“What do you mean?” Sybil said, turning off the engine.

“Some of the higher-ups began to make the staff and soldiers do things that didn’t make sense.”

“Like what?”

     Earl sighed, “They ordered soldiers out into the blast radius of a bomb; like into trenches wearing just uniforms. Sometimes they had on masks, sometimes not. At the same time, several of the staff were confined to the base infirmary. We all thought it was radiation poisoning. But when we all saw there were no radiation precautions being taken we then thought, 'maybe those people were getting something else, a sickness, from exposure to radiation.' It wasn’t. Those people were wasting away, dying for no reason! They suffered from horrible nightmares; they scared the bejesus out the medical staff! My CO said they sedated them all to the gills just to keep them quiet.

     Again images from old film footage this time showing the horrors of radiation poisoning on the victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki filled Sybil's mind as Earl spoke.

“Everyone was tested for radiation exposure. There were endless blood tests to see if something had gone wrong from exposure, and then more and more people started having nightmares, but we were ordered to be silent. That wasn’t hard since most of us were posted to the base during the week and only went home on the weekends. How do you feel, by the way? We can get closer if you want,” Earl suggested.

     Frowning Sybil replied, “Is it safe?”

“Far as the radiation goes, you’re 'safe' as the houses. We should be able to go right up to the tower....”

**** 

To be concluded....     Go to Part 3      Go to Part 5

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