EXCERPT

CHAPTER ONE
STRANGE HAPPENINGS

“Sir, A Mr. Randy Murdock from Goldenfile, Inc. is here to see you.”

“Very good, Sarah, please show him in.”

“Mr. Murdock, it is a pleasure to meet you at last. I am Hal Sturate, Vice President of Global Investments. Please, have a seat.”

Randy moved towards the soft, leather, over-stuffed chair situated next to a sprawling desk. It shared a large window area that afforded a grand view of Lake Michigan and the curving sweep of Lake Shore Drive.

The warmth and comfort of the beautifully furnished office was in strong contrast to the sharp, cold Chicago wind he had left outside.

“Thank you, Mr. Sturate, I’ve been looking forward to this meeting ever since your company was recommended to my organization.”

“Yes, so have I. Please, call me Hal. We can dispense with the formalities between ourselves, and yet it is understood that any business that might develop between our two companies will be conducted in the strictest of confidence, as your officials have requested. I have not been filled in on the particulars of our possible future business associations, but my superiors tell me you have something of great interest to relate to me. I am to understand it is of the utmost importance for our two firms to establish a mutual understanding.”

“Yes, what you have been told is true. The information I am about to relate to you is of the absolute truth, because I have first-hand knowledge of the entire events. I know that you have been sworn to secrecy, and that secrecy will remain in tact, regardless of how your company chooses to handle some of our investments.”

“Yes, I have accepted the decree of secrecy. Please continue.”

“We have chosen to put the events in a manuscript so that you will have your own, personal record. The entire contents are recorded on this CD-Rom. The gentleman you will read about has recorded what took place in his own words. I caution you to guard this with your life. We highly suggest you read it in one setting, as we await your immediate decision. I will leave you now and expect your call tomorrow. Because of your involvement, should you choose to bring your company on board with us, only you will retain the details, and because of this fact, you will be compensated beyond anything you could imagine. Should you decide not to represent us, I will return for the CD tomorrow.”

“Randy, you have my personal assurance on this, and I will close my office within the hour and then call you tomorrow.” Hal stood, shook hands with Randy, and then escorted him to the door.

“Sarah, please see Mr. Murdock to the elevator, and then come back and lock up. I will not be disturbed for the rest of the afternoon.

“Yes sir, as you wish, Mr. Sturate.”

Inserting the CD-rom into his computer, Hal Sturate read the following report in the words of the eyewitness:

“My story began a little over a year ago. An individual we shall refer to as Dallas Haselton was driving east of Mesa, Arizona one afternoon, leaving the Phoenix Valley.

Arizona sunsets are some of most spectacular in the world and are created when the afternoon sun, together with the dust-laden clouds, began their work to create the painted sky. Our friend Dallas was drinking in this awesome sky painting as it was being reflected in the side view mirror of his truck. In the same moment, he saw through his windshield the sun’s light rays catch the many faceted surface of the Superstition Mountain, setting it ablaze with golden light. This entire display was one of the reasons why the Gypsy people of his tribe (known as Black Dutch) love the desert life. Scenes such as this fire their passions. Dallas never ceased to be amazed by this magnificent spectacle, and it was while in the mists of God's light show, he almost missed seeing the brilliantly lit object ahead of him. It arched across the sky and landed behind some rock outcropping just a short distance from his truck. Without knowing what the object was, but awed by its size and appearance, he felt compelled by his Gypsy nature to stop and investigate.

Parking the truck off the two-lane black top, Dallas used caution to approach the outcropping, thinking how strange it was to see a meteor in the daytime. He reflected on the many times he had been captivated by the nighttime displays, but never had he seen anything like this in broad daylight. From his earliest memories, Dallas had been fascinated by the nighttime skies of the desert. It had always provided him with a playground for his ideas and imaginations.

He had walked about a quarter of a mile through the desert sand when suddenly he sensed - no, more attuned - to a vibration that seemed to fill the air around him. This caused him to scramble for the protection of some large rocks, and in doing so, his right hand automatically grasped the hilt of his large knife, always worn on his belt; the signature of a long gypsy tradition. From his vantage point, he was able to see the flashing of faintly colored lights. These seemed to come from a small hill that lay just ahead of him.

This is no meteor, he thought.

From that moment on, he covered the remaining distance with extreme care, his hand never leaving the handle of his knife. On reaching the safety of another rock outcropping, he positioned his body so that he would be able to view the object without giving himself away. But before easing his head over the top of a large, desert boulder, Dallas first tucked his long, black hair up underneath his baseball cap, and then when he stuck his head above the rock, got the shock of his life.


The scene that greeted him appeared to be an aircraft of some type, about the size of a small house, but oval in shape, with landing struts supporting it while it was parked on the desert floor. The object glowed with an array of brilliant colors, changing and moving in what could best be described as a series of waves. The vibrations could be felt through the large rock he was leaning against.

Suddenly, a lone figure dropped to the desert floor from underneath the craft, quickly followed by three more. The first figure ran about 50 feet before being tackled by the other three, and then all four ended up rolling in the desert sand. A struggle ensued before the fleeing figure was picked up and carried back to the center of the UFO, where all four vanished from view. From his hiding spot, and because of the bright haze caused by the brilliant lights, Dallas was not able to distinguish who or what the figures were. The only fact he was certain of was their human-like forms. Within moments of the figures disappearing, the waves of colors began to brighten, forcing him to turn away from their blinding lights. The ship seemed to instantly leap from the ground into the sky and created a fiery arch across the gathering sunset as it disappeared from sight.

Dallas stood watching as the UFO vanished, not knowing what he had been a party of. Shaking his head in disbelief, he slowly walked back to the truck, lighting up one of his small cigars. On the way home, Dallas kept replaying the scene over and over again in his mind’s eye, trying to make some sort of sense from what had just taken place.

For the time being, it would be best to keep the incident strictly to myself. So many people have reported mysterious events they’ve seen out here in the desert, and then have no way of proving what they had seen. I couldn’t see any gain in adding to the stories, Dallas assured himself.

The next afternoon found Dallas driving along the same two-lane highway that leaves Mesa, Arizona and heads east for 20 miles until finally ending at the base of the Superstition Mountain (a volcanic upheaval that was pushed up from the desert floor to the height of one mile). His eyes constantly scanned both sides of the highway, always on the alert for something of value that may be taken from the desert floor and sold for a profit.

Cruising at a comfortable speed of 50 mph, he allowed his thoughts to play back over the strange events of the day before. He had almost reached the exact same area, when suddenly an object shot into his lane of traffic, stopping momentarily. The object turned and faced his truck, then darted on across the road and entered the desert on the other side.

The creature that had just crossed in front of Dallas sent waves of terror washing over him, and only by his quick reflex actions was he able to bring the Toyota truck to a sliding stop in the middle of the highway, causing all the pieces of junk he was carrying to slam up against the cab of the truck. Pressing his face against the windshield, Dallas began to feel his heart pound in his chest, and his mind immediately refused to believe what his eye had just seen.

Yet Dallas was left with no other conclusion—he had no other choice but to believe that what he had just seen was real. The creature, in his mind, was undeniably a scorpion, and dreadfully real. A scorpion the size of a large dog had just crossed in front of him! A cold chill began traveling throughout his body, and as he sat back in the seat, the logical part of his brain kept insisting, No way, man, this is impossible! Just impossible! “First the strange craft that landed yesterday, and now this. What sort of strange world am I becoming involved in?” Dallas shouted.

The Gypsies that belong to Dallas’s tribe live in the desert knowing they must co-exist with many species of animals, reptiles and insects, and the less sociable of these are given a wide berth. Strange and spooky stories have always been told around many a campfire at night, drawn from creatures of the desert. But this was different. This was something more than any of his people had ever spoken of—more than anyone could be expected to believe. This was unbelievable. Scorpions didn’t grow that big! Dallas couldn’t shake the terror that was building in his mind.

While staring at the spot where the scorpion had disappeared, Dallas’s memory brought to his mind facts that he knew were true about the only two varieties of scorpions found in Arizona: the smallest one is just an inch in length and tan in color, while it's larger cousin is green and about two inches in length. Even this limited amount of knowledge caused him to once again doubt what he had just seen. Maybe he was crazy, and yet there was no denying what he had just seen, because the creature was just too big to be imagined.

Once again the logical part of his brain fought against what he had seen, insisting he consider the distance from truck to the point where the scorpion had crossed the road, and then compare the size of those objects to the scorpion itself. But this exercise only left Dallas with the original observation — that the scorpion was at least three feet high and at least 8 feet in length. This sucker was a monster! Fear and bewilderment really began doing a number on his emotional system, when suddenly the inside of the Toyota began to grow dark.

Looking around, he watched as a black fog began rolling towards him, enveloping the entire truck, inside and out. The air was charged with electricity as a heavy silence fell about him, shutting out the rest of the world. If that wasn’t bad enough, the cab of the truck began reeking with a sickening smell. As he automatically reached for the door handle, something fought against his efforts to open the door and escape, almost as if someone were purposely preventing him from leaving.

Dallas felt as if he was being suffocated in the black, stinking darkness that tried to overpower him. Whatever the force was, it seemed intent on probing his mind, causing a sudden, blinding shock of pain — as though his head was being split in two!

Dallas yelled from the blackness, “Stop it, you’re killing me!”


As the pain began to subside, a female voice spoke from the darkness. “Please, I need your help”

“Who are you?” he shouted, not knowing to whom he was speaking to.

“I saw you yesterday near the ship, when you came to help me.”

“I did what?” he exclaimed, all the more bewildered.

There was no reply, but instantly the black fog vanished and Dallas found only an empty sky surrounding him and his truck.

The black cloud had left him sitting in the middle of the road in his truck, his mind a jumble, his senses numbed, and at a total loss as what should be done next. Knowing fully well he couldn’t just sit there, Dallas felt he must investigate; to somehow become involved in this nightmare and eventually finds some answers. At this point, he couldn’t just drive away; Gypsy people were made of tougher metal than that.

Then the idea came to him. Maybe there wasn’t anything that could be done about the black stuff in the truck and the woman’s voice, since they were both gone, but there was something he could do about the scorpion.

So pushing aside his fears about the scorpion, and ignoring any common sense he did have, Dallas told himself that enough was enough; he didn’t have to be the one on the end of a string that someone else was pulling. He decided a stand had to be made because he was losing control of his life and he wanted to know what was causing it. By starting with the scorpion, he was sure he could at least track it to see where it had gone. He could investigate the black cloud and the woman’s voice later.

His reasoning told him that a search for the scorpion would probably be a waste of time, but this would at least give Dallas a sense of being involved, and at that point in time, it is what he wanted.

He got out of the truck. First, he examined the immediate area of the desert he found himself in. The side of the road where the creature had disappeared consisted of greasewood bushes, jumping cactus and small rocks littered about. Far to the north of all this, small rounded hills known as the Goldfield Hills could be seen as they pushed their way up through the desert floor. South of him, stretching out for miles, was the vast expanse of the Phoenix Valley, gently sloping until finally ending at the San Tan Mountains.



The view was panoramic, interrupted only by two small upheavals known as the Twin Knolls. Standing at the edge of the vast desert, taking it all in, the realization of how hostile the land could really be suddenly dawned on him, especially when one was pitted against an unknown enemy.

Dallas paused, wondering if he should take the gun that he kept hidden in a side kick panel, but rejected the thought, knowing he would only be spending a couple of minutes looking around. It wasn’t as if he were going hunting for the thing.

Taking a deep breath, he stepped off into the hot sand and started his search on the north of the road, but found only what he had been walking in - hot sand!

While he searched the desert floor, a flight of black birds caused Dallas to momentarily remember the effects of the fog, and for a brief moment, he stopped to stare at the stark blue sky, but saw nothing to cause him any concern.

Shaking off the bizarre feeling, he wondered if all of this wasn't a bit foolish, but when he scanned the desert floor one more time, he saw what he had been searching for — tracks! So it hadn’t been his imagination after all - he wasn’t crazy.

The emotion of fear returned, this time much stronger, and it took every ounce of reasoning for Dallas to continue the search.

Once again, the inner voice told him to leave - now! But another voice told him he had nothing to fear, and so he found himself ignoring the first small voice, and instead knelt in the hot sand to examine the tracks, measuring them with a six-inch steel ruler he carried for his work.

The marks appeared to be made by a set of digging claws that were almost six inches apart. Upon checking the tracks again, he noticed that they disappeared beneath one of the very large greasewood bushes, a desert growth that dominates the floor around the Phoenix Valley. A small amount of trial and error soon had him following the tracks as they first led around one bush and then through another.

This method enabled Dallas to cover a considerable distance, only having to drop to his hands and knees occasionally to relocate the tracks. His concentration was so intense that he failed to notice the sun rapidly disappearing below the horizon until its light began to fade. He hurried on, trying to gain as much ground as possible, but the vast desert stretched out before him, miles to the Goldfield Hills.

When the tracks disappeared again, a horrifying thought suddenly occurred to Dallas. Maybe this was one of the creatures spoken about in the Book of Revelations? “And they had tails unto scorpions, and there were stings in their tails: and their power was to hurt men five months.” Suppose this monster was real? The Bible said they existed. What could he really do? Hit it with a stick? He didn’t even have a large weapon. A scorpion that big would be impossible to kill with bare hands or his knife! After all, he had only intended to follow the tracks for a couple of feet; just to be sure they were real.

The fact struck home with the power of a bolt of lightning. Jumping to his feet, he felt a slight dizziness one gets when being in the desert heat too long.

Unfortunately, the sun hadn’t caused the dizziness. It was fear, plain and simple; fear of meeting something that could have come straight out of a horror movie.


Turning around and around, he desperately began a search for anything that could be used as a weapon – a large stick, or a large rock – anything! When nothing could be found, panic took over, causing the blood to begin pounding in his temples and his heartbeat to dramatically increase.

To make matters worse, the bushes near him suddenly moved. By now it was too dark to see what was causing it. Looking toward the direction where the road should have been, Dallas saw the headlights of a distant car cut through the blackness of the night, letting him know just how isolated and vulnerable he was.

Fear is an awful emotion to deal with when you feel you are going to die. It can take control of your mind and make you believe almost anything.

Someone once said, "The imagination is the largest nation in the world." Suddenly Dallas saw in his mind's eye the creature approaching with its venomous tail arched high – the scorpion now becoming the hunter – how quickly the tables can turn. Dallas cursed his stupidity for not bringing his gun. This thing could eat him alive!

At first he tried walking slowly towards the disappearing headlights, attempting to calm run away fears and gain some self-control; but with every step, the picture in his imagination grew worse. Then he was running in the dark — crashing into greasewood bushes, smelling the pungent odor that gives them their name, and experiencing the pain as their sharp branches whipped into his face. His fear increased, which caused him to run even faster, convinced that the scorpion was just behind him. On and on he ran, even when an ache began to develop in his lungs. Still, he urged his body to go faster.

Then his foot tripped on the edge of something hard. “Now what?” His mind screamed. To his relief, it was the edge of the blacktop road.

“What direction was my truck? Curse this desert!" he spoke to the lonely night.

Dallas sensed that it lay to the right, and continued running, occasionally glancing behind him to see what might be there. A minute or so later, an approaching car from the rear of him rose over the crest of a small hill and outlined his truck in the glare of its headlights. They also flooded the road in front of him, and for only a moment, an object seemed to be visible in the center of the road.