13th September – Judgement Day
The home of Celia Francis overlooked the recreation ground, and she spent a lot of time each day watching the comings and goings on the field.
Ah, that’s Helen, Swan and their friends walking back across the rec., she thought to herself as she noticed the group through a gap in her curtains.
She was pondering on the strangeness of Helen and Swan’s unannounced return, when the phone rang.
‘Hello, Aunt Celia,’ said the voice at the other end. ‘It’s your nephew, Rod.’
‘How nice to hear from you,’ Celia replied.
She was very fond of her nephew and his wife, Crystal, although she thought that some of their ideas were rather odd. She would never have said it to their faces, of course, but she believed that they should settle down and get proper jobs, rather than doing all this chasing around the country in search of UFOs.
‘Have you seen anything odd in Waterford this morning?’ Rod asked.
‘No,’ Celia replied. The business with Helen and Swan had been pretty odd, she thought, but Rod couldn’t possibly be interested in that. ‘What sort of thing?’ she continued.
‘Have you seen the news this morning?’ asked her nephew.
‘I haven’t had the radio on,’ Celia replied.
‘A UFO destroyed Northchester Cathedral at dawn this morning,’ Rod explained. ‘UFO sightings have since been reported in a line that runs from Northchester to Waterford. There have been no sightings beyond Waterford, so we think it may have either gone into space or landed somewhere near you.
‘Crystal and I are just leaving the M3. We should be with you in about half an hour.’
‘I took the dog out early this morning,’ Celia replied. ‘I saw that Mr. Arnold had got a new car, but I didn’t see any UFOs. Oh!’ she suddenly added and then fell silent.
‘Are you OK, Aunt?’ Rod enquired.
‘Some people who used to live in the village came back this morning after having been away for a long time,’ Celia explained. ‘I’ve just been watching them walk across the rec. with some strangers who were with them.’ She paused.
‘Is something wrong?’ asked Rod.
‘Some men seem to be firing guns at them, and they’re shooting back. That’s very unusual in Waterford. It looks like one of the men has been hit.’ Celia paused again. ‘They’re all running into the woods now.’
‘I bet that’s something to do with the UFO,’ said Rod, employing the logic which always concluded for him that any unusual event was very likely to be UFO related. ‘What’s happening now?’
‘I can’t see,’ Celia replied. ‘They’ve all gone into the woods. I can hear what sounds like lots of gunfire though. Oh!’ she again added in further surprise before falling silent once more.
‘What’s happening now?’ said Rod urgently.
‘Well,’ his aunt replied, ‘this large black thing has just risen above the trees.’
‘What does it look like?’ asked Rod
‘Like one of those special, secret, American aeroplanes you see on the telly,’ she answered.
‘What’s it doing now?’
‘There are blue beams coming from it, and they’re causing explosions in the wood. Some of the treetops are on fire. The village conservation society isn’t going to be very happy about that.’