Bald Face Mountain

PROLOGUE

Approximately eighty-four million years ago, during the age of dinosaurs, a meteor the size of a football stadium struck and penetrated two-thousand feet into the coastal region of what is now the United States. This meteor created a 2.3 billion-tons of TNT explosion equal to 175,000 Hiroshima size nuclear bombs. But the five-mile diameter crater made by that impact-meteor was not discovered until 1969. In 1972 oil drilling began inside the crater.

Over millions of years, the evidence of that crater has nearly vanished. In the crater area frequent evidence of iridium has been found in the rocks. Iridium is rarely found in the earth’s crust but is in the earth’s molten core. Since Iridium is one of the consistent components or meteors, it is evidence of an extraterrestrial object colliding with earth. Using the vast destruction of this crater, it has been calculated to have been traveling at a speed of 40,000 mph. The damage was far beyond devastating to the surrounding features from this collision. It was colossal in its destructive effects on the surrounding environment.

As millions of years passed, the crater was worn down by erosion and was not detected until oil drilling rigs penetrated 700 feet through the crater’s central surface. Rocks (shocked quartz, schist, and gneiss) were found that occur from the astronomically intense heat produced by meteor collisions and nuclear bombs. Coincidentally, the highest peak of the crater rim was also about 700 feet above ground level.

TOWN OF ASHTON

The citizens of Ashton had no idea that they lived in an historic area. In 1969, the oil drilling began without much notice. The drilling went down to about 700 feet, in an area that was simply too rough of an environment to build a town or city.

Then, one day it was revealed to them, by geologists, that while drilling for oil they had discovered an unknown impact meteor crater which they had drilled into.

The highest point of the crater rim was about 700 feet above ground level. On a map it was named Bald Nobb. It had been called by that name for two centuries, and still is the official name of the peak on local and state maps. Of course, it was not really a mountain, just a tall hill. However, the locals liked calling it Bald Face Mountain because the top was rounded and bare. Plus, there were outcroppings that looked like huge boulders at strategic places so that, when seen from the town, it looked like two eyes and a bulbous nose. Then, after more extensive drilling and heavy rains the lower fourth of Bald Nobb collapsed in a landslide which revealed a cave opening and made the face complete. The cave opening looked like a mouth. It scared people who were prone to see it as evil. Most adults paid no attention to those silly ideas, but kids like to speculate, and try to scare each other with horror stories.

While drilling was going on, the whole area was made into a NO TRESPASSING zone due to the dangers involved with oil rig equipment, landslides, sharp-edged rocks, and slick oil-mud mixture on the ground in most places. Since oil was liquid gold, security guards were assigned to police the area 24/7.

After approximately a decade, the oil ran out and the drilling stopped. The oil company moved out within weeks. The land was now unguarded, but still dangerous. Local police were supposed to patrol it frequently, but after a year they stopped.

A group of Ashton High School kids snuck out to the crater area on weekends. They saw the mouth opening, but it was a dangerous trek to it. Also, there was no path and there was plenty of a slick, thick, oil/mud mixture in the area. Additionally, there were plenty of extremely sharp rocks, as sharp as flint and obsidian, which Native Americans used for knives before Europeans introduced steel knives. Any falling down meant getting up with slashes to whatever parts of your body made contact with the rocks.

THE HOLE-IN-THE-WALL-GANG

Ashton High School, like most high schools, had its sports stars and pretty or semi-pretty cheering team members that wanted to be with them. This wasn’t the case with the football stars, except for a couple of girls. The reasons why that was so is as follows:

Doug Hart: The senior football quarterback thought he was the star of the team and the premier quarterback in the state. Egocentric and arrogant were not words that were extreme enough to describe him. His rugged good looks, however, made him attractive, only on first impressions. Hart was 6 feet 4 inches tall, and 210 pounds, though somewhat soft. His passing football arm was weak and inaccurate, so the team mostly ran the football. The one gift he did have was the ability to kick the football. He could produce long kick offs and could even kick successful field goals most of the time if the ball is kicked close to the goalposts. Because he was a poor student and because the football team was having a rare successful season, his math and science teachers were intimidated by the coaches to keep his grades at a satisfactory level, thereby avoiding having to remove him from the team because of his poor academic performance. He had dreams of playing football with a major university, but the coaches knew, and never said, that he was not college football material. The coaches often laughed amongst themselves as he would trip over his own feet when he ran with the football. If he did somehow get a scholarship to a college or university, it would most likely be a seldom heard of institution, or one that is starting a new football program and can in no way compete with the traditional football powerhouse universities. The coaches also knew that if that happened, he would not last long because universities were not going to fix his grades, nor allow his indiscretions.

Chaka Longo: Chaka could easily be said to be the actual star of the football team. He made Hart look good with his long, tackle-breaking runs. Many opposing team members had to leave the field due to injury. Chaka was 5 feet 10 inches tall, and 195 pounds of muscle and speed. He was Hart’s best friend and vice versa. He and Hart were also the royalty of high school bullying. They thrived on it, needed it, hungered for it daily. Chaka raped his girlfriend, said it was consensual, and got away with it, chiefly because of his coaches’ manipulations and the fact that his father was the first black chief of police in Ashton. He had one suspension for each year of high school except this year, his Senior year. A master of the bad attitude, anger, and aggression, he came from a dirt-poor family whose father beat him until Chaka grew and was too tough to handle. Chaka hospitalized his father with a retaliatory beating that his father would never forget. Just as he would always never forget the humiliation that he received when the town found out that the chief of police had gotten beaten by his own son. As might be expected his father deserted the family. The coaches and most students knew that Chaka was destined for a hard life. Even Hart was smart enough to know that and not say anything.

Emma Cohen: Emma came from a moderately rich family. The Cohens owned and operated an upper crust jewelry business and on the side, they profited from stolen or illegally imported diamonds. Emma was Hart’s girlfriend, a spoiled bitch with a life of privilege as if having a protective umbrella preventing the harsh realities of nature and society from splashing on her life. Her major reason for being with Hart was that her parents disliked him and that she enjoyed rough sex with him. She could dominate him during sexual intercourse where she, not he, was the boss and star. Hart having a voracious appetite for sex was a perfect match for Emma’s nymph-like desires. She knew how to enhance her own sexual needs by demanding that Hart do as she wanted him to do. She was an average student who knew that she did not need a good education to live a rich and happy life after graduation, which is when she would ditch Hart and find someone more satisfying and richer. Unknown to Hart, Emma would lay with Chaka, if Hart were not available. Their secret, so far, was successful. She often said that “the pill” was the best gift of her life, no worries about pregnancies to hinder her desires. She treated Cade with pathetic disgust and sometimes flashed her breasts at him, curious to see if she could turn him on, then leave him with an erection and sore balls. But Cade was too smart to fall for that trick. When she exposed her breasts, he smiled and said, “Too small.” After that she stopped exposing herself. She only put up with him because Hart and Chaka allowed him to be with them as a whipping boy, errand runner, and, most of all, doing their difficult homework. She only had two other “sometimes” friends: Anna and Mia who also disliked Cade solely due to Emma’s influence. Follow-the-leader friends.

Cade Sallow: Cade was the equivalent of the football team’s water boy although, officially, he was listed as equipment manager. He was inadequate at any sport, but he maintained good grades without much effort. His grades as a freshman, sophomore and as a junior put him in the top ten of the best students. It didn’t take him long to complete Hart’s and Chaka’s work either. The difficult part was guessing just how many mistakes to make so it looked like Hart’s and Chaka’s satisfactory work. He was a sad person, though, and was never seen smiling. Hart and Chaka let the diminutive Cade hang out with them sometimes. When they didn’t want him for something, they’d simple say, “Get lost.” He was the new kid in school. He had arrived in late September. He was in a foster home where the foster parents needed the money. He was barely cared for, skinny, and his clothes were worn and shabby. He wore the same pair of athletic shoes every day, with the upper front part cut out to allow his feet to have more room. One foot was longer than the other, so he walked with a limp and sometimes fell if he tried to go too fast, like when he was trying to catch up with Hart and Chaka as they walked quickly away. He was shy, easily influenced and suffered repeated humiliation from other students. His nickname was “Shallow.” He accepted the humiliation so readily that it seemed as if he felt that he deserved it, yet there was a spark of deceit and hatred in his eyes that was rarely seen. He had no friends except Hart and Chaka. He was wrong, but he was in denial since he desperately needed friends. He hated Emma. In his foster home, he was mostly ignored until the Department of Child Services came for a visit. Then he had good clothes and new athletic shoes. He was clean and his hair was nicely parted. It was all for “show,” of course. He never was able to dress like that until the visitor from DCS came to visit. He was happiest when he was studying anything to do with astronomy. He was obsessed with the subject and wanted to go to a university to become a PhD astronomer. His heroes were Einstein, Carl Sagan, and Stephen Hawking.

*******

One day Hart said, “Hey, let’s go to the crater.”

“Dangerous place, answered Emma.”

Hart: “What do you think, Chaka?”

“Got nuttin’ better to do.”

Cade interjected, “Did you know that a landslide revealed the cave opening.”

“Yeah, we heard all about that. Nothing special. Probably only goes in a little way like a dent in a golf ball,” Emma said with derision.

Cade: “Yeah, but I was the one who reported it to the newspaper.”

Hart: “I didn’t see your name in the article.”

Cade: “No. It was not credited to me because I did it anonymously, but I believe I found it first.”

Chaka: “Newspaper said it was extremely dangerous to try to reach the cave opening in the crater’s rim.”

“Not so dangerous if you follow the hidden path, watch your footing, and wear protective clothing like work boots, heavy pants, and a double layer of wood carver’s or fisherman’s’ gloves,” Cade chuckled with a smile.

Emma: “OK, show-off. What are woodcarver’s gloves?”

“Woodcarvers often wear fine, steel-mesh gloves for protection, fishermen too, so they can fillet fish without cutting themselves with the extremely sharp fillet knives. The metal is as fine as a thin thread and woven into a glove. It prevents slices quite well but will not stop a stab with the point of a knife. I have a pair to wear. Go to Abe’s Fish and Tackle store and buy a pair, or two if you want double the coverage.”

“Sure. We can all go together after school tomorrow,” Hart stated as if he were giving orders like a Marine drill instructor.

Cade sighed, “Can’t do that. Busy after school with my food job.”

“What food job?” shouted Chaka.

“We didn’t know you had an after-school job,” Emma shouted. Then, “It can’t be too demanding, though. Has ta be light-weight work that your toothpick-skinny arms and legs can handle.”

Again, Cade was the butt of a joke. He had gotten used to her sarcasm. Emma was treating him like a wall that she constantly hit with balls of humiliation, degradation, and sarcasm. Emma’s verbal gun was always loaded with unfriendliness.

“I get food for an ancient guy with a huge appetite. I guess you would say that I’m in the food-service business,” murmured Cade with a sly smile, not being nearly as hurt as he pretended. He’s gotten so good at that over the last few weeks. He was even able to shrug off Emma’s constant hostility.

“Just how ancient is this person? Like a hundred years old?” laughed Chaka.” Can he still walk? Does he shit his pants? Does he piss himself in bed? Jesus, you don’t have to feed him, too, do you?”

“Well, he has gotten big and fat. Can’t get food for himself so I get it and bring it to him. He doesn’t need to be fed. He shits and pisses, naturally, but he takes care of himself. He sleeps on the floor. Beds are too soft for him,” smiled Cade.

‘What the hell you smilin’ about?” asked Hart. “You can’t possibly like a job like that.”

“I don’t mind doing it for him. He’s a distant relative. One day a distant relative will take care of me, too.”

“Can we see the old goat? Does he have a goat-tee?” Emma asked, then laughed as if the joke was hilarious.

“His skin is sun-sensitive, which prevents him from coming outside, plus he’s an illegal alien, always hiding.”

“You protectin’ an illegal alien. What the fuck, man. You know what ‘illegal’ means? Dumb ass. Come on! Screw your Ancient One. I don’t give a shit about him. Let’s get back to our cave adventure. How about we call ourselves, “The Hole-in-the-Wall-Gang,” Emma shouted impatiently.

Hart and Chaka looked at each other, their brows furrowed in confusion and their eyes asking, “What the fuck are you talking about?”

“You two are a couple of dumb asses,” Emma shrieked with a disgusted shake of her head. “Cade. Tell them.”

“Of course, the hole in the wall for us is the cave opening. But in the old west there was a place in Wyoming, hidden in the Big Horn Mountains, where horse and cattle thieves, stagecoach robbers, store and bank robbers and highwaymen of all kinds could hide from the law and be well-defended. Once inside The Hole-in-the-Wall-Gang’s hide-out, the law could not come after them, too dangerous because it was too well-defended. Two of the more famous outlaws who used this location as a refuge from their criminal activity were Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. This secure hiding place was called the hole in the wall; thus, the outlaws were called The-Hole-in-the-Wall-Gang.”

“Pretty good explanation, squirt,” Emma added.

Hart: “I like it. We’re the ‘Hole in the Wall Gang.’ Now we just have ta get inta that hole in the wall. You like it, Chaka?”

“Damn straight I do,” Chaka said enthusiastically. “We be cowboy outlaws. Hee-Haw.”

“And one cowgirl outlaw,” added Emma with an emphasis on “girl.”

“Yeah, of course,” Hart said.

“Chauvinist pigs,” Emma whispered, but was only heard by Cade who chuckled to himself.

“That includes you, too, asshole,” Emma whispered to Cade.

Since they couldn’t trek out to the cave without Cade leading the way safely down the hidden path, they had to wait for the weekend which just happened to be a Halloween weekend.

“Even better,” thought Cade. Such a sweet weekend. He bit his lip and enjoyed the taste of blood. “So, so sweet,” he repeated to himself.

Halloween fell on a Saturday, October 31st. The Gang packed their protective clothing and equipment, that they thought they might need, into their backpacks. They all met at the bridge that led away from town.

Everybody showed up and by 1:00 p.m. they were hiking across open fields, a copse of trees, bushes until they got to the rim of Bald Face Mountain.

Cade led them to the hidden path. An hour of incredibly careful walking and trying not to touch the jagged rocks finally led them to the mouth of the cave.

They each grabbed flashlights from their backpacks, turned them on and followed Cade into the cave.

Twenty feet in the walls lit up with bright, white dots the size of dimes, nickels, quarters and some as big as half-dollars. The floor looked and felt as if it were crushed gravel and was also lit-up, like a movie theater aisle the helps you get to your seat. The ceiling, however, was so dark it could not be seen.

“Holy shit!” Emma screamed. “Are those diamonds?”

“They’re shocked quartz. Brilliant, aren’t they? Like fake diamonds,” answered Cade.

Hart and Chaka looked all around the cave and their mouths dropped open but made not sounds.

“Fuckin’ amazing,” Hart said to Chaka.

“That’s for damn sure,” Chaka replied.

“They do look like those diamonds, the ones called Cubit Zercom, or something like that,” Emma exclaimed.

“Cubic Zirconia,” corrected Cade.

“Wow! The know-it-all squeaks,” stated Emma.

Cade: “The cave goes back much farther. You haven’t seen the best parts yet. You’ll love the sights in this cave.”

Cade led the way, continuing deeper into the cave.

The gang slowed their walking to observe the fluorescent walls. They were not like the shocked quarts. This time the walls glowed in the colors blue, green, orange and blended with a color that touched its border.

“Wow. This is so incredible. There’s no artificial light in the cave, so what am I looking at?” Emma said to Cad.

“The walls of the cave are glowing with the bioluminescence of glow-worms. There are hundreds of thousands of them. It’s a chemical reaction. You can turn off your flashlights. As you can see, the glow-worms produce enough light for us to see the path. Oh, I almost forgot to tell you that the glow-worms are carnivorous.”

“God damn it! Did you lead us into danger, you bastard?” Emma asked, showing her quick temper.

“Of course not. Jesus, you’re so jumpy. The glow-worms eat flies, moths, small insects that get caught in their sticky traps, like a spider’s web. Now you tell me, Emma, just how the hell can a one-inch glow-worm possibly hurt you?”

Emma felt foolish, so she didn’t respond as she looked down at the path.

“And something else I forgot to mention” …

Emma interrupted, saying, “Oh, Christ, not again.”

Cade ignore her, then said, “The hungrier the glow-worms are, the brighter the shine. It looks like most of them are quite hungry.”

Cade could see the mesmerizing affect that the glowing had on the others. The glowing was drawing them farther into the cave. They wanted to see more and did not need Cade to pester them about advancing farther.

When they advanced, Cade led them out of the glow-worm section. Now, much deeper into the cave, they came upon a section of the path that was a red, soft, and spongy. Now the walls looked black and only the path was lit.

“Look, the path is now glowing muted red,” Hart exclaimed.

They turned their flashlights on and pointed them at the path to light it up more brightly. They swayed back and forth on the red, spongy material as if they were children at an amusement park ride. Wide smiles appeared.

“That can’t be glow-worms, too, can it?” Chaka said, in a somewhat stuttering voice of incredulity.

Emma: “It feels as if the path is moving very slowly farther into the cave. How can that be. Can anyone else feel it?”

Cade: “It’s just an illusion created by the glowing path and the dark walls. It’s a characteristic illusion. Nothing to worry about.”

Since neither Hart, nor Chaka noticed it, Emma accepted it as an illusion.

“How do you explain the dim red color?” Hart asked as he and Chaka were getting more confused but fascinated, too.

“That’s a job for our Super Intellect, the superpower of knowledge!” Emma shouted in a ridiculing tone of voice. She had been waiting for this moment to get her revenge on Cade.

“The muted red color comes from a special kind of moss called Reindeer Moss. The plant is miniature, but under a magnifying glass the micro-tiny stems separate into what looks like reindeer antlers.

Suddenly all talking stopped as the flashlights found the stalactites and stalagmites just ahead of them.

“You notice anything strange about them?” Cade stated.

No one answered Cade.

“OK. See how they are growing down from the edges of the ceiling and up from the edges of the path? They are not growing over the path itself, just at the edges of the path, next to the walls. They look like two white picket fences that were placed along both sides of a sidewalk. It’s a unique characteristic of this cave only. You are seeing the rarest of sights,” Cade said.

“Yeah? So fuckin’ what Cade!” Emma said with a grimace and clenched teeth. She was sure that she could beat the shit out of him and wanted to do just that, right now.

“You’ll see soon enough enema. Sorry. I meant to say Emma. Soon you will see why they are unique to this cave and what their special purpose is. I would suggest that no one proceed any farther along the path,” Cade said in an authoritative voice, then continued

“There is a drop-off, a deep hole that can’t be crossed. This is as far as we can go.

“Did he really say enema?” Chaka blurted.

“Yeah, he did. Hey ass-wipe. Are you enjoying yourself? You getting to give the orders instead of always having to obey our orders,” Hart demanded.

Emma’s hands were folded tightly into fists and anger surged inside of her.

“Well, you know, Hart, there was a special purpose for me to take all the humiliation that you three kept dumping on me. I needed you to see me as pathetic, your whipping boy, errand runner, homework doer,” answered Cade.

“Fuck you, man. Cut the bullshit. What’s your bullshit, intellectual, hidden purpose, smart ass? I’m just dying to hear it,” Chaka said.

“Getting you here, inside this cave, of course. I feel sad for you, Chaka. Your legs are so strong and fast, but above the neck you are so weak and slow,” scolded Cade.

Emma giggled. “He’s got you there, Chaka.”

“Sure. We are all dying to hear what you have to say, as always. We’re on the edge of our seats wanting to worship a little, rail-thin wimp like you. I’m sure that after this Hart will kick your ass out to the gang,” Emma yelled, spit shooting out of her mouth in tiny droplets, some saliva sliding down her lower lip.

Chaka was staring at Cade with a fierce expression, wanting to beat the shit out of him.

But as he stepped forward Cade completely changed shape. He became a monster. A monster that glared back at him unafraid. Not only unafraid, but his glaring eyes seemed to put all of them in spotlights that froze their movement.

As the gang stared helplessly at the monster, they saw a head shaped like an inverted pear. A huge head that must contain a large and vastly superior brain.

The massive forehead had a large tennis-ball sized eye in the center and at each temple there were two golf-ball sized eyes.

There was no extended nose, just two quarter-sized holes with a raised rim around each of them.

The mouth had no lips. Around the mouth orifice were about a dozen moving, miniature tentacles about a foot long. At the end of each tentacle there was a mouth, with sharp teeth opening and closing, then snapping forward as if to grab and bite. Each little mouth made a chilling, squealing noise as would a mouse in the jaws of a hungry cat.

His jaw drooped downward parallel to his neck, which descended, then broadened into the large shoulders, each having two arms. One arm was short and the other was twice as long.

The hands had long, slender fingers, too delicate-looking to be on a monster his size.

Its torso was covered with scales that looked so thick they could have been armor plating.

His legs were short, but massive. They were also covered with thick scales.

His feet were small and out of proportion with his body. His feet simply consisted of what looked like a massive heel, no ankle, no instep, no toes.

As the unmoving Hole-in-the-Wall-Gang listened, the monster explained. “This entire cave structure and mountain are alive, but we have been dormant for millions of years until the oil drilling and landslide woke us and exposed the cave entrance. This whole miniature mountain is an ancient alien whose mouth you are now standing inside of.

“The outside boulders are, indeed, the eyes and nose. The cave opening is his mouth. The brilliant quartz crystals and glow-worms were inducements for you to continue deeper into the mouth of the cave.

“The soft, red spongy soil is the Ancient One’s tongue, the stalactites and stalagmites are his teeth and the void beyond them is his esophagus.

It is my job to provide the Ancient One with food since he can’t move. He doesn’t need much to eat. The three of you will last him for months, like your hibernating bear. Of course, in a few months, after he devours you, I’ll need to bring him more food. You should be proud; the taste of Earthlings pleases him, like having dessert.

“You may be thinking, Now what? I’ll simply return to the Ashton High School as an entirely different person. No more Cade. I think I’ll change into a basketball athlete that’s 6 feet, 6 inches tall and I’ll easily get on the basketball team where I can get to know the team members, seduce the cheerleaders and, when it’s time, select some tasty food for the Ancient One.

“We are stranded on Earth with nowhere to go, so we live as best we can without the much-superior technology on our home planet. This is such a simple-minded, pebble of a planet. On our planet we are hundreds of times more technologically advanced than you backwards earthlings. An apt comparison might be an earth caveman finding a smart phone or a computer. Your technology is laughable. Your rocket scientists would be like children building toys on my home planet.

How did we get here? We travel on rays of light. A cluster of rays makes for excellent travel. You may compare it to what you call hitch-hiking. However, it would surely be a waste of time trying to explain it to you or any of your scientists. Unfortunately, my crew, the Ancient One and I were interrupted by a meteor that was on an exact trajectory for hitting your planet. We were able to maneuver enough to get into that meteor’s contrail and so when we lost power completely, we slipstreamed, drafted, in its wake toward Earth. Only the Ancient One and I escaped in a pod. Then all we had to do was use our antigravity device, with its own power unit, to land on earth and burrow underground to avoid the catastrophic results of that meteor. Your atmosphere was not breathable for us but, for us, that was a simple fix. We altered our body’s breathing system to allow the intake of oxygen, then we excavated this cave and settled in for a long, long sleep. We woke due to a brutal geological upheaval which buried us even deeper and forced us into an extreme form of, what you call, hibernation.”

“Now I need to say goodbye and thank you for the offering of your bodies to sustain myself and the Ancient One. You will be considered runaways or victims of a kidnapping, murderer, or forced into slavery. In a year you won’t be missed at all by anyone except fond parents, maybe some relatives.”

Cade/monster quickly turned and walked to the cave exit where he transformed into the tall, cute basketball athlete. As he continued walking away, he could hear the echoes of the screaming food as they were being chewed. As he got farther away, he could even hear the loud gulps of the illegal alien, the Ancient One, swallowing his tasty meal.

He turned and faced the cave opening, pointed his finger at it and the cave sealed itself with the exact material that surrounded it.

CODA

Arthur C. Clark: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

Michael Shermer: “Any sufficiently advanced extraterrestrial intelligence is indistinguishable from God.