I worked on oil rigs for fifteen years. Spent time in the Air Force before that, Korea. I know the difference between what's real and what isn't. What happened to me in October of '74, that was real. I was forty-one at the time, foreman on a rig out of Rawlins. My crew used to call me the Wyoming Coyote because once I got onto something, I didn't let go. Stubborn, I guess you'd say. But that day, October 25th, I took off work to go elk hunting. Borrowed the company truck, headed south about forty miles to McCarty Canyon in the Medicine Bow National Forest. I remember the road got pretty rough, so I parked and went on foot. This was around four in the afternoon. Weather was decent, bit of snow on the ground from earlier in the week. I'd just gotten my new 7 mm magnum rifle the month before. Thing could put a bullet clean through a telephone pole, and that's the truth.
I topped this ridge and there they were. Five elk, just grazing in this clearing below me. Beautiful animals. I spotted the bull in the bunch, raised my rifle, got him in my sights. That's when everything went wrong. I pulled the trigger. Now, that rifle kicks like a mule, you feel it in your shoulder every time. But I felt nothing. No kickback. No report. And I watched the bullet leave the barrel in slow motion. moving in slow motion defy physics - Marcus' I mean actual slow motion, like time itself had changed. The bullet just drifted out maybe fifty, sixty feet, and then dropped straight down into the snow. I stood there trying to make sense of what I'd just seen. Couldn't. So I walked over to where it fell, found it in the snow, and tucked it into the fold on my canteen pouch. The thing was mangled, turned inside out. I'll tell you what, I've never seen anything do that to a bullet.
That's when I heard it. A sound like a [ snapping. I looked to my right and there in the shadow of the trees was this man standing there. Except he wasn't a man, not really. He was tall, maybe six-two, about my weight. Wearing this black jumpsuit, like a diving suit, real tight fitting. Black shoes. He had this belt with a six-pointed star in the middle, yellow emblem below it. But his body, that's what got me. Bow-legged, arms too long. His head was slanted, no chin to speak of. Hair stood straight up like straw, thin, and he had no eyebrows. When he opened his mouth to talk, I saw he only had six teeth. Three on top, three on bottom. He asked me if I was hungry. Just like that, in English. I said yeah, I suppose I was. He tossed me this package, looked like a Dristan container, you know, the clear kind. Four pills inside. He told me they were four-day pills, said if I took one I wouldn't need to eat for four days. Now, I don't even like taking aspirin normally. Don't know why I did it, but I swallowed one of those pills right then and there.
[ Story continues in the full game... ]