SYLVANS

CHAPTER 1 - FIRST ENCOUNTER

THE ROCKY POINT, PINE BATTENS PRESERVE.
RIDGE ROAD, ROCKY POINT, LONG ISLAND, NEW YORK

Even if Joe had not been drinking, he probably still would have hit the child. It seemed almost as if the child fell out of the darkness above Joe's headlight beams directly onto the road. Before Joe's alcohol laden reflex could even begin to apply the brakes, the small body hit the hood of the Camry with a soggy plunking noise. It bounced over the windshield with flailing arms, hit the roof with a dull thud and disappeared. Sick with horror Joe stood on the brake, stopping the car fifty feet away.

A kid for God's sake, he knew another DUI would land him in jail so he had deliberately chosen the long way home. Thirteen miles of deserted road winding through the desolate Pine Barrens forest of eastern Long Island.

Joe wrenched open the glove box, half tearing off his fingernail, the pain drowned by the vast amount of adrenaline crowding out the alcohol in his blood. Flashlight, gottahave a flashlight, he thought, I own a hardware store godammit. He found a pencil light and pushed the switch. A feeble beam illuminated the open door of the car as he jumped out.

Oh please God, don't let this child be dead, please, please, he thought. He knew to the core of his being that he had to take care of this kid, no matter what the consequences. He had to somehow make this right. He ran toward the small huddled form dimly lit by the glow of his taillights. He stumbled and fell, his hands painfully scrapped by the rough blacktopped road, the little flashlight rolling away. He cursed and rose picking up the light and ran the last few feet to the child.

It happened so quickly that for a split-second, he almost believed it was a booze fantasy. This child suddenly stood up, impossibly fast after suffering such a hit. It couldn't be more than four feet tall, with strangely elongated limbs. What was hewearing, some sort of black bathrobe? Its dark facial skin was riddled with folds and wrinkles, the eyes, yellow and luminescent. They were large eyes like those cartoon kids you see in toy stores, only not cute. Not cute at all. With impossible speed, the child-creature darted from Joe's weak flashlight beam into the viscous blackness of the woods.

Once Joe had been sitting in a gin mill, minding his own business when a drunk sucker-punched him, knocking him off the stool. He had sat there, dazed and uncomprehending, blood from his nose gushing on his shirt and pants. He felt the same way now, only much worse. He had caused this he was responsible. What could he tell the parents of this strange child creature?

He pointed the flashlight, barely illuminating a pitiful few square feet. He swung it back and forth. Nothing. He stood still and listened. There was no rustling noise, not even a breeze to stir a few leaves. The only thing Joe heard was the internal humming in his ear. The flashlight died out and he threw it to the ground with a curse.

He ran back to the car. A sob escaped from his throat as he jumped into the still idling Camry. He slammed in reverse and jammed on the accelerator, the car weaving, barely in control as he reached the approximate spot where he had been standing. He whipped the wheel sharply to the right and stopped the car sideways in the middle of the road, blocking both lanes, headlights pointing into the woods.

The thick underbrush allowed the lights to barely penetrate a few feet. He switched to high beams. The halogen headlamps lighted the big oaks and pines rising above the underbrush, washing out the colors rendering everything in black and white. Like that Blair Witch movie, he thought hysterically.

For a long time, Joe stared at the empty woods and thought about the child. Grief and self-loathing rose in his throat like a noxious cloud. He pounded the dashboard violently, feeling the pain of each blow through his shoulder. He sat there until the lightest tinge of the eastern sky announced the coming dawn, before he finally drove away.

Early sunlight glinted off the top of his roof when he pulled into his garage. The house was empty. He found the note from his wife telling him she would be gone a few days and ending with a terse "We need to talk." He knew what the talk would be about. He vowed to turn things around when she came back, but first he had to settle last night's event somehow.

He spent the morning sitting with the remote, switching the TV to all the various news channels while listening to local radio stations at the same time. Nothing about any missing kids or hit and run. For hours he agonized over the next step until finally he picked up the phone.

His words stumbled as the desk sergeant answered the phone.

"I was wondering, ah, would you have any, ah, reports of kids missing?"

"I have a whole wall of them. Are you making a report sir?" replied the sergeant.

"Uhm, I'm not sure, I ah, maybe. Were there any hit and run?"

There was silence on the other end. Joe's hand started to shake and he felt himself sweating. Don't feel so guilty, he tried to reassure himself. You're only trying to do the right thing now.

"Are you Mr. Joseph Gray?" the officer suddenly asked, startling Joe.

He sat in stunned silence. Of course they would have caller ID.

"Sir?" said the voice on the other end.

"Oh, uh, I'm sorry, yes, I'm Joe Gray."

"Would you like to talk to a detective sir? Would you like to make a report?"

Joe felt the need to unload his burden. He desperately wanted help.

"Yes, please, I can be there in a few minutes."

The Fifth Precinct is located a short drive from Joe's house. Even though the building is a fairly new concrete structure, the inside smelled of old wood, paper and ink. Police officers came and went as Joe sat fidgeting, waiting on the rough wooden bench.

After about ten minutes, a dark haired pleasant looking middle aged man wearing an ill fitting sport jacket, introduced himself as Detective Figueroa. He led Joe into a windowless room containing a table and four chairs. The glare of the bright fluorescent lights hurt his eyes, adding to his discomfort.

"I understand you have information regarding a missing child," said Figueroa.

"Uhm, not exactly, I think, maybe, I might have hit someone."

He stopped and put his face in his hands, pressing his eyes as if that single action could just make the whole thing go away.

Figueroa looked at him, not unkindly.

"Maybe you would like to have a lawyer present," he said

Joe placed his hands on the table, opened his eyes and shook his head no. Then he began to talk. He told this detective as much as he could remember, answering his frequent questions and only leaving out the amount he drank that night. When he finished, he looked at Figueroa expectantly. The detective's notes filled two pages.

"Mr. Gray, you said you know exactly where this happened. Could you take me there now?" asked Figueroa, putting down his pen.

The detective led him out of the Precinct house toward his unmarked sedan.

"How many cars do you have?" he asked, like an afterthought.

"Two," replied Joe. "Well, more like one. The second one is my wife's. She's been gone a while."

"Do you mind if I looked at your car?" asked Figueroa.

Joe led the detective to the Camry. Figueroa spent the next 15 minutes going over every inch of the car. Apparently satisfied, he took Joe back to his sedan and followed his directions to the desolate spot on Ridge road.

"Are you sure this is where it happened?" asked Figueroa.

"Very sure," said Joe, picking up a small steel tube in the weeds at the edge of the blacktop. "Here's my flashlight."

Figueroa spent an interminable amount of time examining the road surface and surrounding shoulders. He asked Joe about the spot where he thought the child had run into the woods. He looked into the weeds and scrub oak bushes until the daylight began to dim. Finally, they rode back to the precinct in silence.

Joe found himself back in the brightly lit room.

"Let's summarize what we have," said the detective, "There are no local missing persons at this time, kids or otherwise. You said you hit what appeared to be a child, or perhaps a strange little old man with glowing yellow eyes. Whoever or whatever it was, you claim it fell out of a tree and you hit it with your car. But there are no marks or dents on your car. All of this happened in the middle of the night on one of the most deserted roads in the area. You found the exact spot, found what you said was your flashlight, but there's no blood or any kind of evidence of any thing being hit anywhere on the road or the surrounding woods."

Joe's stomach ached as he realized how stupid the whole thing sounded. He pulled his lower lip between his teeth, making a sucking noise. Figueroa looked at him and continued:

"Now let me give you my version Mr. Gray. Before you came here I looked at your record. You have two DUI's, am I correct?"

Joe nodded, feeling the acid in his gut worsening by the minute.

"You said you own a hardware store. Hardware stores close early, usually between six to eight PM, nine the latest. You said you worked late on inventory, then had one beer and found yourself in this incident at about two in the morning." Figueroa paused, locked eyes with Joe and continued, "Here is what I believe happened, Mr. Gray. You were tired, feeling the effect of that one beer. You decided to take the long way home through the Pine Barrens, probably because of the scenic value, or maybe because we seldom patrol it. But it is heavily wooded and has a large deer population. The thing here is that deers don't run flat out, they hop. A small one hopped on the road in front of your car, you probably just brushed it, then you saw it run away."

"That was no deer," Joe said, trying to speak with conviction and hearing his voice coming out in a muffled tone. God he was tired. Now he suddenly craved for sleep, for relief from this nightmare.

"Late at night, tired, one beer, sometimes our eyes play tricks on us," said Figueroa, "Here's what we're going to do: I'm going to write this up as a possible animal collision. I'll send a patrol down Ridge Road twice a day for the next couple of days. We'll keep our eyes open for missing persons. If nothing comes up the next few days, we'll put the matter to rest."

**

It was past nine PM when he got home. He had not slept in two days. His shoulder was sore and his finger throbbed where the nail had been torn off. He bandaged it and laid down on the couch.

The early October dawn was at least a half hour away, and the darkness thick when Joe opened his eyes and saw that the entire east end wall facing the backyard and woods had vanished. He sat up, feeling his pulse racing as bile clawed at his throat. He rose from the couch. It seemed as if he was a stranger watching himself, detached yet not remote. He walked to the edge of the second floor on legs he couldn't feel as a part of his mind shrieked in fear. Below he could see several furtive small hooded figures. One of them looked up with a flash of yellow eyes in a face like dark venom. He backed away from the edge as a sense of palpable menace enveloped him. He could hear a muted hissing and creaking noises outside as if the figures climbed.

He backed away until his heels touched the opposing wall. His hands trembled as fear washed over him. He knew he should run and cry for help but his feet would not obey. He backed into the wall, feeling his body trembling, his breath like ragged bellows in his chest. Two of the figures appeared at the edge of the floor, dark figures, barely visible against the night sky. A corner of Joe's mind noticed the symbol painted on his floor. A twelve point Star of David with the inside missing.

More figures appeared and as they began to move forward, Joe knew he was in the greatest danger of his life as the air thickened around him.

He bolted upright with a stifled scream, almost falling off the couch. His heart raced and his hands shook from the nightmare. A vague sense of threat still remained. Daylight had arrived, and the digital readout on the microwave said 8 AM as he walked into the kitchen. He needed coffee more then any morning he could remember. As he opened the cabinet, he glanced at the window and froze.

The window was slightly opened and on the counter just below it, rested an exquisite shape made from twigs lashed together. A twelve point Star of David with the inside missing. As Joe picked it up, he noticed the way it was crafted. No more than a foot in diameter, each delicate twig was tied with some kind of dried plant matter in perfect symmetry. Joe closed and latched the window and put down the object. He told himself that he must have seen it when he got home, that he must have missed the open window, that it was just one of the many curio things that Becky was always buying, that he was so unsettled from the events of last night that it all came together in that horrendous nightmare.

He called the hardware store and told his manager that he wouldn't be in. The visit with the police had not resolved anything for him. Deeply troubled that he had injured or even killed someone, he knew he had to find the answer to this puzzle if his life was ever going to be right again.

It was mid afternoon when he drove to Ridge Road and found the spot at the end of a sharp curve. He parked on the shoulder of the road and started walking the area and searching. He didn't quite know what he was looking for. Did he expect to find a child or some kind of midget, huddling wounded in this primeval untouched section of the Pine Barrens. He continued walking until he reached a narrow footpath and came almost nose- to-nose with a homeless man.

At least it looked like a homeless man as they looked at each other in silence. The man was tall with a salt and pepper beard and long ragged overcoat. They stared at each other for a moment, and Joe broke the silence first.

"What are you doing here?" asked Joe.

"I live here," replied the man, "I know what you're looking for and you wont find it here."

Joe didn't reply. What little confidence he had, left him like smoke out an open window. He also felt like he was being watched. The feeling grew as Joe turned back to the road, walking quickly to his car.

Joe drove back home and spent the rest of the day and evening doing small household chores. All the radios and TV in the house were tuned to local news stations but still no reports on any pedestrian accidents or missing people.

I know what you're looking for and you won't find it here.

The words of the homeless man kept coming back to him. At first he tried to dismiss the encounter. Joe volunteered monthly in the church soup kitchen and had first hand experience with homeless people. He knew some of them were mentally ill, and irrational. This was probably just the case with this man, but still, the man's words seemed to have meaning directed at him, and the man had a certain presence.

That evening Joe decided on a course of action. He noticed with satisfaction that he had not had a single drink since that night and did not feel any desire for one now. The first order of business was surely to get on the wagon and stay there. Tomorrow he would go to the store and arrange for his absence for a few days. He had to get away and clear his head. He would find Becky. She had to be with one of her two sisters, and he would start with Jeanne in Connecticut. Tomorrow evening he would take the ferry from Port Jefferson and stay at a hotel in Bridgeport. He could start fresh the following morning, and do whatever he had to do to get Becky back.

When he went to bed late that night, he fell asleep soon as his head hit the pillow.

He woke to a chill breeze blowing through the house. The digital clock read 4:30 AM as he got out of bed to check the windows. The walls had vanished. The house was now four corner pillars holding the two floors and a roof.

The air brimmed with a sibilant hissing, punctuated by scratching noises. As he moved closer to the edge of his second floor bedroom, Joe noticed the surrounding homes had also vanished. A quarter moon shed a dim light on the scene below. Dozens of hooded figures surrounded the house and to Joe's horror, they climbed the pillars to his floor. He backed from the edge, ever so slowly, his feet seemed to be walking in molasses, each step painfully slow as the small figures reached his floor and circled around him. He became conscious of the wild pounding of his heart as he saw each figure carrying a gleaming white thin bone sharpened to a wicked point. The yellow eyes were bright in the dark hoods, and small fangs gleamed with drool in the moonlight. The circle closed in on Joe.

This time he screamed as he bolted upright in his bed. Sweat bathed him, his body shook, and his hands trembled. He felt the sledgehammer pounding of his heart, as he looked around wildly at the four walls of his bedroom.

5 AM. He might as well get up. No way he could go back to sleep after this nightmare. Warm oily nausea rose in his throat. He got up and turned the light switch. His heart jumped at what he saw. The top drawer of his dresser was open, and he knew for sure he had closed it. The middle stack of underwear had been removed and neatly piled on the top of the dresser. In their place, standing in the drawer and leaning on the edge, stood a duplicate of the twig symbol he had found in the kitchen yesterday morning. This one was larger, about a foot and a half in diameter. Joe approached it cautiously, as if it was going to come to life and attack him. It had the same intricate workmanship and symmetry, but instead of twigs, this one had been made out of the bleached small bones of animals. He closed the open bedroom window that he knew had been shut when he fell asleep last night.

Joe ran a shaking hand through his thinning hair. Was this some sort of elaborateprank or was he truly losing his mind? He knew he had to get out of there as he hurriedly packed his bag and threw it in his trunk. He left the house as the sun came up, and drove to the diner next door to his hardware store. He had coffee only, his appetite gone, as he waited for Donald, his manager to open the store.

I know what you're looking for and you won't find it here.

The morning went by, hazy, and dim. The day seemed to pull at his bones, sucking the marrow. Joe couldn't concentrate as Donald reviewed the inventory, and new orders. He knew he acted strange, and his concentration evaporated.

"Ordered another hundred bags of salt..... ran out last year.....fifteen extra packets of ice scrapers....stockboy Billy not pulling his weight...." Donald's voice droned on.

COME!

The word seemed to boom in Joe's head. He jumped, startled as his face suddenly turned pale. Donald stopped talking and looked at him.

"Did you hear that?" said Joe as Donald stared at him.

"Hear what?"

"That sound, that voice."

"Joe, are you all right?"

"No," said Joe, shaking his head, "No, I'm not all right."

"Why don't you go home, or see a doctor?" said Donald, "I have things under control here,"

Joe nodded, picked up his jacket and left. He did not want to go home, and he could not leave for Connecticut just yet. He had something else he had to do, something that danced just out of his conscious reach.

He drove back to the spot on Ridge road, and parked his car close to a large fallen oak on the side of the deserted road. A breeze rustled some dead leaves as Joe stepped into the woods. The underbrush and scrub oaks formed a clearing surrounded by tall pines. Joe walked further into the woods until he could no longer see the road or the roof of his car.

Something watched him, he knew it, could feel it, there was a presence here. The feeling grew stronger, and it seemed as if the pit of his stomach fell away as he crossed a sandy fire-trail, and walked deeper into the Pine Barrens.

The vegetation changed to tall scraggly pines, their trunks black from the last fire. The ground turned into a deep soft pile of brown needles, and greenish moss. A part of his mind started to worry about getting lost. Christ, I don't even know what the hell I'm looking for, much less where I'm going.

A scrapping cough startled him, and he whirled toward the sound. A man sat on a log about twenty feet away. How did I miss him? I'm losing it, he thought, I'm reallylosing it. A small, strangled noise escaped from his throat as he walked toward the man, stopping a few feet from him.

I know what you're looking for and you won't find it here.

"You," he said. It was the homeless man.

"Yes," the man replied, "Actually, I have a name. It's Duncan Wesley."

The name sounded vaguely familiar. The man's voice sounded well modulated, and distinguished with a hint of a British accent. His overcoat was clean, and his beard trimmed. Up close, he didn't seem like a ragged homeless person. But didn't he tell him he lived in the woods? What else could he be?

The two men stared at each other, Joe standing and Duncan sitting at ease on the log, an amused smile, curling a corner of his lip. The feeling of being watched like a bug under a microscope increased. Joe suddenly knew, was completely convinced, that something else lurked out there. A pine-cone fell from one of the trees, landing nearby with a muffled thump, breaking their silence.

"What did you mean yesterday, and who are you?"

"You mean how did I know what you hit?" said Duncan, ignoring the second part of Joe's question.

"Dammit, answer me. There was no one around that night. How did you know?"

"There might not be anyone around, but there's always something around, even if you don't quite understand it or know about it," Duncan replied, "Did you ever have a dog bark at a bunch of trees or bushes and you can't ever see anything. Did your cat ever jump from a quiet spot, run to a window and stare at the woods or just a tree or two? You see nothing, but your cat or dog clearly sees something disturbing."

Joe squatted, his eyes now level with Duncan's.

"Please tell me, Mister Duncan Wesley," said Joe, "Please tell me, in one simple sentence or less, so even I can understand it, what did I hit with my car that night?"

Duncan's gray eyes locked on Joe's with perhaps a hint of pity.

"You hit a Sylvan," replied Duncan, his voice soft as the falling pine needles.

The meaning completely escaped Joe. There was a Sylvan avenue near his house. Joe always thought it had been named after some obscure historical figure.

"What the hell is a Sylvan?" asked Joe, his voice rising.

"That's what I named them. I discovered them about a year ago," replied Duncan calmly, his British inflection increasing, "When I worked at the Lab."

Something rustled on a branch, the noise loud in the stillness of the tall pines. Joe looked up, seeing nothing.

"Don't worry," said Duncan, "You'll see them only when they want you to. You'll hear them in your head only."

"The Lab?" asked Joe, ignoring Duncan's last statement.

"Brookhaven National Laboratory," replied Duncan, "I was head of the Long Island Pine Barrens Biological Study Program."

Something clicked in Joe's head as he suddenly remembered where he had heard the name Duncan Wesley.

It had been in all the Long Island papers about a year ago, and had caused quite a stir in scientific circles. Duncan Wesley had come straight from Washington, the National Security Agency. He had been placed in charge of several projects at Brookhaven Lab. He expanded the projects to include the Long island Pine Barrens. Editorials had speculated that the NSA was using the projects to cover up some hush-hush programs transferred from Los Alamos. Wesley never commented to the press and never submitted to interviews. A few weeks later the newspapers lost interest. Stories of the Brookhaven Lab projects were swept off the front pages by the sensational Play-For-Pay murders.

"What are you doing here?" said Joe, "You're supposed to be a high-end scientist with a big position at the Lab."

"What I am doing here and what happened to me, is what is happening to you right now," replied Wesley, "I discovered the Sylvans."

A small corner of Joe's mind noted that his hands trembled, and his breath came in short bursts. He felt like he was teetering on the edge of a black pit while something slithered in the darkness below. He lowered his head and cradled his forehead with his right hand.

"Please help me," Joe said, his voice trembling, "I don't understand what is happening to me, what are those things you call Sylvans?"

"They are a species mankind never discovered, or perhaps we discovered them thousand of years ago and lost the knowledge," replied Duncan, "They might even be an offshoot of Mankind. As we evolved, we developed technology and neglected our mental powers. They developed mental powers, never adopting any technology,"

"You mean like some kind of Elves?"

"No," replied Duncan, "Not like Elves at all. These are rather nasty little buggers."

"How can they be around all these years and never be discovered?"

"They are creatures of the woods and forests," replied Duncan, "They live in trees. Their bodies conform to tree limb shapes, their skin changes color instantly. Their camouflage is so perfect, you could take pictures of a tree with dozens of them and the photos would not reveal a thing. But here's the real trick they have. They can reach into your mind and cloud the image your brain is getting from your eyes. You could look right at one and see only a branch or a bush."

"So how could you ever have found them?"

"In a way, I found them like you did, by being in the wrong place at the wrong time with technology. Your technology was the car. Mine was my invention, a spectrographic camera that films the imperceptible magnetic field of every living creature. I was using that device when I started seeing their fields as auras. When I became aware of them, they became aware of me," Duncan gazed away, and his eyes glittered as he continued. "My life as I knew it, was over from that day. I am their servant. I have no choice," Duncan looked at Joe again, "Like some kind of dammed pack mule," he added, spitting the words like bitter pits.

"But surely there's something you could have done," said Joe standing up, unable to control his shaking hands, "Even if half this crap is true, you could just have run to the cops or people at the Lab."

Duncan looked up at the gray sky, his head shaking slowly from side to side. He stood up and returned his gaze to Joe. Suddenly, without warning, he rushed at Joe, his large body covering the distance in a split second, he grabbed the lapel of Joe's jacket with one hand and used his forearm to pin Joe's shoulders against a large oak tree. Duncan's face was inches from Joe's. Surprised by the sudden move, pinned against the tree by the bigger man, Joe could smell his sour breath as Duncan hissed at him with frightening urgency.

"Run," said Duncan in a fierce whisper, "just run as fast as you can. Get away from here, get to the city, go live in somebody's basement or the subway. They can't follow you underground," Duncan's whisper rose with ferocious intensity as he continued, "Don't go anywhere where there are woods, don't go to Central Park, they have a colony there."

Joe felt like he was falling, caught up in a living nightmare at Duncan's next words: "I know what you're going through, the nightmares, finding the symbols, hearing the voices, it's just the beginning. Run, maybe you can save yourself. It's too late for me, and I know that my time is playing out anyway,"

Engulfed by a primitive terror, a consuming fear, Joe pushed Duncan away. The feeling of being stalked by something powerful and evil overwhelmed Joe. He turned and ran, crashing through brushes, he ran the way he believed he had come. Nothing looked familiar until he crossed the sandy fire trail. Something grabbed his arm, he screamed and turned, pulling away the branch that had snagged his sleeve. He came stumbling out of the woods, almost falling on the roadway just a few feet from his car. He heard strangled crying noises as he fumbled for his keys, and realized they came from his own throat. He yanked open the door.

His peripheral vision barely perceived the impossibly fast movement of the tree limb in the split second before Joe's world exploded in a flashing consuming whiteness, changing to total darkness as he slid down the side of the open car door.