Thunderbirds Are Go

Range of Horror

by Lee Homer

Disclaimer: All rights reserved, Inspired immensely by the true events of the famed Skinwalker Ranch in Utah, I wanted to write a small horror story that was originally intended for this year's Halloween Special, but I was worried that I'd lose the story ideas by then. Reviews are welcome and I hope you enjoy them!

Day #07

Virgil's Statement.

We weren't prepared to lose out ranch to these things. These entities were determined to drive us out, but we weren't going to give up with a fight. It had been an intense week, so it was understandable that we were all sleep-deprived and on edge. We decided to stick around and investigate, concluding that there had to be some kind of explanation behind the activity. Despite the lack of sleep, I volunteered to fly around the perimeter and see if I could detect anything unusual. We had a lot of scientific measuring equipment in the laboratory, so I asked Scott to help me load all of it into the Pod. Kayo volunteered to join me so I told her to suit up.

We took off a short while later. Thunderbird Two lifted off gently through the concealed hatch that sat beneath the ground in the hills behind the ranch. Kayo sat behind me at a portable computer, which she had set up. Together, we spend the next few hours combing the sky and surveying the land below us. It was a long and tedious mission, but it would soon provide us with another bizarre experience. After finding nothing unusual with the property itself, we moved on to the area where Alan and Gordon encountered their Cryptid. When we got there, Kayo received bizarre spike readings on her instrument monitor.

"Virgil, I'm getting a strong spike of electromagnetic energy," she said. "It's coming from the west-view rock. Can you take us down for a closer look?"

"FAB," I replied.

We banked closer towards the area so Kayo could take a stronger reading. As we flew over a second time, the readings intensified. We hovered over the mesa, where Scott and Kayo had seen a weird shadow creature. It was at that moment that we suffered a mysterious systems malfunction. The computers around started to flash and buzz erratically. I felt the wheel drop in my hand as if a lead weight had been put inside of it.

"What the hell is going on?" I screamed as I wrestled with the controls. "We've got a system's malfunction. I'm switching to manual!"

Kayo strapped herself in as I threw the manual override switch. It didn't do much, but I was able to gather enough power to fly away from the area. As we did, the automatic systems flipped back on. Kayo stared out of the window at the mesa, which now sat behind our tail. She saw what looked like two dark figures, sliding up the side of the rock formation. It was at that moment that a theory washed over.

"Virgil, I've got a feeling we were hit with an energy burst," she explained. "I just saw two figures upon the mesa and I think they had something to do with what just happened."

"Two figures? Are you sure?"

"Positive. I suggest we land and explore on foot."

I didn't like the sound of that one bit, but Kayo never doubted her senses. Just like the rest of us, she was trained to observe the unexplained as well as everything else. Her eyes rarely deceived her. Unable to form any explanations of my own, I followed her lead, setting down at the bottom of the trail path. We disembarked Thunderbird Two and followed the trail up towards the spot Kayo had seen these two figures. To add a bit of context, this was the same trail that Alan and Gordon took before encountering the Cryptid. With that piece of information locked in my mind, I was prepared to face anything.

About a partway up, Kayo stopped me in my tracks. We could both smell a rotten odour that appeared to hover in this area. We didn't smell it a minute ago. It just appeared out of nowhere. The pungent smell seemed to come from a ledge above us. It didn't look too difficult to climb, but we used grapple hooks to be on the safe side. Kayo climbed up first while I waited below. When she reached the top of the ledge, I watched the colour drain from her face. She looked away, masking her face with her hand. She looked like she was about to throw up. Urgently, I climbed up the side of the rock face, gripping the cables tight. What I saw was horrifying. A dead cow lay there. It looked as if it had been dead for a while as it's a swarm of flies hovered around it. Blocking the smell, I bent down to investigate it. It didn't look like it had been shot or anything. Instead, something had taken a bite out of its stomach. I couldn't work out what animal could have done such a thing, but it had to have been huge. I wondered if the Stag-Man could have done it, determined to face it.

Kayo composed herself and returned to the carcass. She reached into her satchel and pulled out an Electromagnetic Detector. The needle on the detector danced from left to right, confirming the reading she took earlier. She paused to look at me.

"There's got to be something here that's causing the activity. Like a well or scent marker but for supernatural activity."

"Normally, I'd say you're crazy, but I think you may be onto something," I replied. "What could be causing this burst of Electromagnetic energy?"

She shrugged. "I don't know, but I remember reading somewhere that Electromagnetic Energy can help spirits manifest by feeding off them. They can also act as natural beacons to lure in UFOs. Kinda like a natural hub or lay-line that travels around the globe."

"Like Stonehenge or The Pyramids, of course! But the ranch isn't significant or anything, so why choose here?"

"That's the mystery, Virgil." She muttered. "I think there's more to this than meets the eye. Something or someone has disturbed the land around here, which may account for the activity around here. As for the Stag-Man however, I don't know."

Suddenly, our conversation was interrupted by the sound of footsteps shuffling through the dust behind us. My body tensed as I clenched my fists. The footsteps sounded heavy on approach as they crunched into the loose stones. Glancing at each other, we spun around to confront whoever it was standing there. I froze as a static sensation took hold of me. Two, scrawny men in dark black cloaks stood there. One stood a few feet from me while the other propped themselves up on top of a rock. The top half of their face was masked in shadow from the long hoods that covered them. One had a dirty mattered beard that ran around his chapped lips. The other appeared to be much younger. I'd put him in his early thirties. Both of them look malnourished as if they hadn't eaten anything for days. The skin on their arms was covered in blisters and legions. Paralysed on the spot, I tried to rationalise the situation.

Kayo mustered the ability to speak. She called out to the man. I could hear her mask the tremble in her voice.

"Who are you?"

The strange man shuffled forward slightly. He slowly raised a long, clawed finger, pointing it at her. As he spoke, she could smell a foul odour from his breath. His teeth were rotten and stained with what appeared to be blood. He spoke in a deep, gravelly whisper which was amplified by the rocks around us. He beamed an unearthly smile and replied;

"Leave this place. While you can."

"Answer my question!?" Kayo replied. "Are you responsible for this?"

The strange man grinned at her. The stench from his breath flooded my nostrils. I wanted to vomit. It didn't take me long to deduce who tore into the cow carcass. Were these guys feral cave dwellers or something? I could see pieces of the animal in his matted beard. He was the most degrading person I had ever seen. Breathing heavily, the man let out a disembodied cackle, guaranteed to keep me up at night.

"Leave! Or your blood will be spilt next!"

Then, with a loud hiss, the creepy man hunched over. His clumsy body heaved as he turned away. I could feel his hold over me weaken the further he moved away. I moved an arm followed by a leg until I was able to lurch forward. I wanted to chase after the guy, but Kayo's cries for help stopped me from advancing. She still couldn't move. I rushed over to her and grabbed her around the waist. I dragged her across the ground, hoping it would help restore feeling in her legs. Somehow, it did the trick. Regaining her balance, Kayo followed me down the mesa towards the valley, hoping we could catch up to the two grotesque figures. To our horror, they had gone, along with the dead cow carcass. They left no footprints or marks of any kind. They had simply vanished.

I didn't know how to react to all this. I wanted to be scared and pissed at the same time. Kayo complained of nausea, so we made our descent towards Thunderbird Two. When we got there, something compelled me to turn and face the mesa once again. I looked up to see those two cloaked figures watching us from a ledge. Although they were distant from us, I could feel their invasive eyes latch onto me. We climbed into Thunderbird Two and returned to the underground hangar. In the hours that followed, we periodically looked out of the kitchen window which faced the mesa. The figures had vanished again, We never saw them again, but it would take me days to rid that rotten stench from my sinuses, and that smile, that dirty predatory smile, would keep me nightmares for weeks to come.

We don't know who those guys were and where they came from, but as our investigation continued, so did the activity. We told everyone what had happened that night. As it turned out, we weren't the only ones who had a strange experience that day.