Chapter Thirty-One
SLATER
1
It was late afternoon on Wednesday, April 20, 2005. The day had been stinking hot without a cloud in the sky. The light south wind that blew perfectly offshore across the five points of the long peninsula that is Noosa Heads had done little to cool things down. The temperature of the crystal-clear water, a bath-like twenty-five degrees, which was normal for that time of year, only made everything seem more perfect, more like it was all designed like that, like it was all meant to be for the surfers that were there.
Slater felt the overwhelming urge to leave the water. He looked around and saw that it was affecting everyone because everyone was paddling for shore and walking back to Teatree. He felt the powerful intrusion into his mind … ‘I’ve had enough … I want to leave … NOW!’ But the surf was perfect. Epic, eight-foot barrels peeled off all the way to the beach, which was some six-hundred yards away. This was no time to be leaving the water, this was a time to stay, but the compulsion was very strong, too strong, ‘too strong for everyone else, that is.’
He immediately discerned what was happening to him. He recognised it because he could do the same thing to others, just not with nearly as much ‘industrial strength’. He could control someone’s behaviour with his mind if he wanted to. He had been able to do it for as long as he could remember, since he was a little kid. And as he became older, the technique refined itself and he became better at it, ‘but nothing quite as dominating as this.’
Slater felt that he could resist the foreign compulsion to leave if he chose to. He knew that he had that ability. But he was curious, inquisitive, ‘what the hell is all this about?’ So, he went along with it and paddled out of the water. He climbed up the steep cliff to the walking track and followed the rest of the ‘zombies’ towards Teatree Bay. He felt the impulse flush through him repeatedly, ‘keep walking, don’t look back … keep walking, don’t look back … keep walking, don’t look back.’ When he arrived at a spot along the track where there was some low scrub growing on the edge of the cliff, and from where he could get a clear view of Granite Bay in its totality, he slipped off the track and hid himself and his surfboard within the bushes. From there he observed the most astonishing event unfold, the most incredible thing that he had ever seen in his life.
2
The last rays of the setting sun had just shed their mystic glow across the water. The western sky lit up like it had caught fire. Spread out below him was Granite Bay, all painted in rich oranges and purples. The surface of the ocean undulated with line after line of clean, eight-foot swells that receded towards the horizon like liquid corduroy.
Slater crouched hidden from view and waited for something to happen. There was no one anywhere. He wondered if this was going to end in some type of big anticlimax.
‘Maybe I’m having myself on,’ he thought.
Then he noticed him, the solitary surfer left in the bay. He saw him plainly, and even though the surfer was at least two-hundred yards away, standing on the small beach that was semi-hidden nestled amongst large, granite boulders, half way out along the point, Slater recognised him immediately. It was Adam, his old, retired, surfer friend-in-thewater. He liked Adam, he liked him a lot and he loved sharing a surf session with him. Adam was one of the older surfers out there, ‘but he carved’. Like Slater, Adam never missed a good day at Granite.
It seemed that Adam hadn’t been affected by the foreign compulsion. Slater’s brain made some rapid deductions.
‘The old bastard is either the same as me, or he isn’t being targeted by the compulsion. My guess is the latter, which means all this is about him. Wow, this is getting really interesting.’
He compressed himself into an even tighter ball and pulled his board closer to himself trying to make sure that he was as totally hidden as possible. He then actively silenced his brain. He felt, instinctively, that whoever was setting up this scenario might very well be able to locate him simply by hearing his thoughts. So, he silenced them as best as he could and observed.
He watched Adam, who was standing next to his surfboard, take a drink from his water bottle. Slater then noticed him gaze out to sea and hold that focus. He looked out in that direction and spotted the thing that was grabbing all of Adam’s attention. It was a very bright star, just above the horizon. His eyes shifted from the star to Adam, then back to the star, which seemed to have moved sideways, then back to Adam, who was still locked onto the star. Then everything started to happen. That star was no star and after a very short while it was no aeroplane either. Slater felt his heartbeat speed up and thump away inside his chest. He controlled his thoughts though.
The bright object approached Granite Bay in a snaking pattern, moving from side to side, about fifty feet above the water. As it got to within about a mile from shore it dimmed itself and shone with a softer, warmer light. Slater noticed how it lit the tops of the swells as it approached. He noticed how Adam just stood there frozen like a statue, like he was hypnotised, and watched the craft as it parked itself right in front of him, hovering no more than a few feet above the water. It was almond disk shaped, made of some kind of polished silver metal and it made no sound whatsoever. A portion of it was over the sand. Slater estimated it to be about sixty feet in diameter. He observed how a panel opened beneath the craft and lowered as a ramp until it nearly, but not quite, touched the edge of the beach, no more than ten feet in front of Adam.
Slater’s eyeballs were literally popping out of their sockets. He was peaking with excitement. It took every ounce of self-discipline for him to keep his brain from exploding into an avalanche of thoughts. He couldn’t believe what he was witnessing. He had never seen anything like this before.
He saw a man walk down the ramp and hop onto the dry sand of the beach. He watched the man and Adam stand face to face to each other. They appeared to have a short conversation, then, as unbelievable as it seemed, they hugged each other for a surprisingly long time.
After all the hugging, Slater watched Adam pick up his surfboard and carry it into the spaceship following behind the spaceman. After a couple of minutes, the ramp pulled up and the panel closed. The ship then slowly rose vertically into the air, not making a sound, becoming brighter and brighter the higher it got. When it reached an altitude of about a thousand feet, Slater suddenly, clearly heard a laughing voice inside his head.
‘Ha ha ha, I know you are there, Slater.’
Shocked and surprised, he then heard the voice recite a short verse.
‘Secrets you, secrets me
Secrets honour, secrets be’
As he watched the spaceship, it shot off at a near-vertical angle and disappeared into the twilight at what to him seemed like thousands of miles per hour.
…….