A CRY FOR HELP

by Tom Johnson

      The big Cherokee 4 x 4 pulled into thick brush just off the Farm to Market road, ten miles from the little Texas town of Dundee. Two broad shouldered men, wearing dark green utility shirts and matching pants, climbed from the jeep and unlimbered their tall frames to stretch after the long drive that had brought them to this little out of the way place for the opening of bird season.

      Although the sky was a deep blue, with only a few white puffy clouds dotting the heavens above, the dirt road they had just driven was still muddy from the heavy rains of the last several days.

      Bob Calhoon, the blue-eyed rider, wiped dirt off the front of the hood and asked, "Why don't you ever wash her, Carl?"

      "Wash old Betsy?" the rugged looking driver asked. "The dirt gives her character," he laughed, as he patted the jeep affectionately.

      "Besides, the red clay sticks to her ribs, holds her together on these pot-holed back roads down here. If I ever washed her, the poor thing might fall apart."

      Carl Dobson was a slightly heavyset man, with a good-natured laugh, who loved the outdoors with a passion. For several years now, Carl and his close friend, Bob Calhoon, had hunted this region of West Texas together. Carl had attended college with the current owner of this wooded patch of outback mesquite brush, and each year his friend had given Carl permission to hunt on his large spread.

      Opening the back end of the jeep, Carl released his black lab bird dog. The large black dog jumped out and ran off into the open field, limbering her cramped legs from the long drive in the back of the Cherokee. Bob watched as the black lab jumped and ran for several minutes, and then rolled over and over on the hardened red clay dirt famous for West Texas fields.

      "Don't you wish you had her energy?" Carl asked his friend.

      "Some times, maybe," Bob answered. "But most of the time, no," he grinned.

      The two men unlocked a cabinet containing several large rifles, and each took out a 12-gauge shotgun. The weapons were well cleaned and oiled, and in good working condition. Both were pump action repeaters, and these the men loaded with bird shot shells, and then checked their safeties before starting out.

      Both men were experienced with hunting rifles of all calibers, but never took anything for granted. They knew that when you became too sure of yourself, it was time to quit before someone ended up being shot by accident. They knew some who had not, and were either killed or paralyzed during hunting season. Weapons were designed for killing, and many hunters forgot that, until they found out the hard way.

      With their shotguns resting comfortably in the crook of their arms, they started off along the hard, dry clay roadbed recently hardened after the rains. Carl whistled shrilly, then called sharply to his bird dog, and the big lab came trotting up to his side.

      Reaching a large, rusty metal gate in the fence line, Carl handed his shotgun to Bob, and then opened the gate and they crossed over. A sign on the red gate described three "D"s, and the men knew they were entering the property of their friend, Don Daredevil Donovan. #

      "Donovan around this year?" Bob asked.

      "No," Carl answered. "He's seldom around any more. He's probably off adventuring around the world somewhere. He's done most stuff the rest of us only dream about."

      "Must be nice," Bob figured.

      "It's in his blood. Always has been, I hear. In college he used to tell us stories that made my hair stand on end. And most people wouldn't believe half of it."

      "Most people?" Bob asked.

      "Yeah, you'd have to know him, to understand what I'm talking about. A sort of superman, outstanding in everything he does. He has incredible strength, a superior mind, and the body coordination any man would want. Built like Hercules, with looks of an Adonis..."

      "The perfect man." Bob mumbled.

      "Just about," Carl admitted. "I can't think of anything he isn't good at. I guess that's why I believed all those stories he told us."

      "He doesn't work his spread any more?" Bob wanted to know.

      "I think," Carl said, "he uses it mostly as a retreat at times. You should see his house! He has a science laboratory, several experimental sheds where he creates new gadgets, and a personal library with thousands of books on just about every subject you can imagine. He could talk to you about any subject you could come up with, and know more about the subject than most experts in the field."

      "Whew!" Bob moaned.

                "Yeah," Carl chorused.

      When their hunting dog suddenly stopped ahead of them, the two men knew the black lab had alerted on something. Bob softly whispered, "Flush them out, girl," and the dog was off like a rocket towards a thicket. The sky suddenly erupted into a black cloud and a rush of wings as the quail took flight from their roosting place.

      Both men swung up their shotguns and two terrific blasts rumbled out simultaneously. What happened next, neither man would ever forget in their lifetime. A sudden whine, like the shriek of a ghostly banshee struck their eardrums with a terrific assault, and they felt a tremendous pain explode in their head, striking them momentarily dumb.

      They dropped their rifles, and both men put hands over their ears to eliminate the exotic wailing that was bombarding their eardrums with shocking reverberations. From out of the dark cloud of birds, they saw a strange circular craft wobbling through the air, and they knew the banshee sound was coming from the flying aircraft. The small, disk-shaped craft looked like two pie plates placed one on top the other, the one on top inverted to make the top look like the bottom, and the bottom like the top. Bright lights were flashing round about the little aircraft, as it disappeared over a ridge, and they heard the sound of a crash about a quarter mile distant.

      "Damn!" cursed Bob.

      "What the hell was that thing?" Carl half shouted to his friend.

      Hearing a whine ahead of them, at first they thought the flying disk had returned. But the whine was coming from their hunting dog, which was on the ground near the brush where the quail had been roosting. Rushing to the dog, they found her ears were bleeding badly, but no other injury was apparent. At first the dog had trouble standing, but soon was able to stand on her own. It kept shaking its black head, and the men knew the shrill whine from the flying disk had hurt the dog's ears more than it had their own, and had possibly ruined its hearing for good.

      "We've got to get her to a vet," Bob said.

      "I know," Carl agreed. "And we can report this incident to the local police in town. They may want to look into it."

      The dog suddenly began to bark, and appeared to be looking off in the direction where the strange saucer shaped craft had disappeared, and then the men heard it too.

      They knew it was a cry for help. But it was coming from inside their minds! Something was injured. And they knew that that something was probably the pilot of the flying saucer. But they wanted to get out of there, to get help for the black lab. But now this! A cry for help from the thing they had seen fly overhead.

      It was the black lab that made their minds up for them. She started trotting towards the area of the crash. The two men followed, slowly at first, then they began a fast trot as well. And all the time, the cry for help was pounding in their heads.

      "We must have hit that thing when we shot at the quail," Bob conjectured.

      "What do you think it was?" Carl asked as they ran, "A flying saucer?"

      "That's what it looked like," Bob agreed, "but I'm glad it was you who suggested it!"

      Coming over the ridge, they looked below to see a strange otherworldly aircraft. The thing was spherical, glowing as if bathed in bright light, and around its edge, colored lights rotated around the body of the sphere, changing from red to blue, to orange and yellow. There were no portals or anything that resembled windows or a door.

      Sliding down the embankment, they rushed towards the weird contraption, which they could now see was half embedded in the hard red clay that now held it like hard rock.

      "It must have hit pretty hard," Bob said.

      "Let's find an opening and get them out of there!" Carl managed to say.

      "I don't see an opening," Bob cried.

      "Hell," Carl cursed, "I don't even see what makes the colored lights. There are no bulbs any where, but there are lights flashing around the damn thing like it was Christmas!"

      Help me! Help me! The voice cried in their heads.

      "Tap it with the butts of our shotguns," Carl suddenly suggested.

      But when they struck the strange object, the lights appeared to flash faster, and the cry in their heads became even more pleading. They pushed at the thing, tried to pry it up, and over, in case the opening was beneath it, embedded in the hard earth. But the weight of the craft blocked them, and the harder they pounded on the hull with their rifle butts, the more insistent the plea within their heads became. In frustration, Carl cried out with his mind, Help us to help you!

      And a weak voice within answered, I cannot. Then the plea returned, Help me! Help me!

      "Damn, Bob, did you hear that?" Carl asked.

      "Yeah, I heard it," Bob answered. "The pilot must be too hurt to assist us!"

      In frantic haste, both men began digging with their bare hands, trying to dig the craft out of the hard ground, ripping their fingers to bloody points of mangled flesh. And in their minds, they knew that the voice within was becoming weaker and weaker. And now, even the lights began to slow and become dimmer. The men knew that they had to hurry if they were to rescue a living being.

      Again, Carl reached out with his mind, We want to help. We're trying.

      I know, the weak voice answered, and still the plea, Help me! Help me! It continued becoming weaker.

      Their fingers were a bloody mess from digging in the hard clay, yet they had made little progress. Finally, in frustration, Carl screamed out his anger:

      "We can't do it! We can't!"

      Bob pounded his fists into the hard red clay, cussing in his own anger. Still, within their mind, the tiny weak voice continued to cry out for help. And all the time, the lights from the craft became ever weaker; the glow began to fade, and the voice cried out in great pain and despair.

      Now, they could no longer hear the voice in their heads, and the lights finally blinked out, and the glow faded completely.

      Bob, on his knees, balled his fists and pounded on the hull of the flying saucer: "I'm sorry," he cried, "I'm sorry. You didn't deserve to die!"

      Carl put his hand on Bob shoulder. "It's over, I think," he told his friend. "We couldn't save it. I think it knew that at the end."

      "We shot it," Bob cried. "We killed it."

      "It was an accident," Carl said. "The craft must have appeared just as we fired buckshot at the birds. Who would have known?"

      "Just an accident," Bob said. "But a life was lost because we couldn't help it."

      "Let's go into town," Carl advised. "Some one will know what to do, who to call about this."

      Grabbing the dog by the scruff of the neck, Bob said, "Let's go, girl. We can at least get some help for you. Come on, Carl, let's get the hell out of here."

      "I don't understand something," Carl said. "I think it knew we couldn't help it, yet it continued to cry out for help."

      "I was thinking about that, too," Bob told him. "Maybe it was calling out to some one else - some one who could help. And we only interrupted the call. Intercepted it, when it was meant for someone else. Maybe we shouldn't have heard it at all."

      "I wonder what it looks like?" Carl questioned, as they climbed back up to the ridge.

      "I don't know," Bob told him, "and I'm not sure I want to."

      Looking back over the edge of the embankment, the two men stared in awe at the now lightless aircraft below them.

      Carl shook his head. "Maybe they'll be able to get it out of the spaceship when experts get out here," he suggested.

      "Something's happening!" Bob snapped suddenly, his body becoming rigged.

      Looking below, the two men watched as the small aircraft suddenly began to fade into nothingness, as if it was dissolving before their eyes. Within a few minutes, the strange little flying vehicle was completely gone, leaving behind a five-foot long crater, several feet deep, showing the incredible impact crater formed when the flying saucer crashed.

      "Oh Lord," Bob gasped. "Carl, do you know what I'm thinking?"

      "Yeah, Bob," Carl inclined his head. "We were trying to find a door in the ship - or some way to rescue some one within."

      "There never was anyone inside!" Bob stated suddenly.

      "No, there wasn't," Carl agreed.

      The unbelievable truth had dawned on them. They had seen the creature within, for the aircraft itself was alive. It had been the flying saucer crying out for help. No wonder they could not find a door. There wasn't one. The spaceship had been a living creature!

      (# Don Daredevil Donovan was a globe trotting adventurer, who traveled with a group of aides, to right wrongs and battle evil-doers around the world. It is his exploits that his friend is talking about. See "Mesa of Terror".)

THE END