RUNESTONES 5/3  

by Richard Banks

 “The man’s a monster. He put a gun to Roy’s head.”

         Roy?” I say.

         “My dog, I have a dog called Roy. Parry said he would shoot him and me too if he had to, that it meant nothing to him because he couldn’t be called to account. Some people, he said, are above the law and he’s one of them.”

         “So, what’s all this about then? Surely there’s more to it than what they found on my land?”

         Jones looks around him as though he thinks we’re being watched, but there’s no one in sight. “It’s not the first one, you know.”

         “First what?” I say.

         “The first skeleton. There’s been others. At first it was thought they were some kind of missing link but when the bones were carbon dated they turned out to be no more than fourteen hundred years old. The scientists wanted to tell the world but the Government said no, that it all had to be kept under wraps until we knew exactly what they were. Then DNA testing became possible and we found out what had long been suspected, that the creatures were neither man or ape, or any other Earthly thing. Then the Americans got hands on; there had been strange lights over the Western Seaboard and the whole country was well and truly spooked. The last thing their Government wanted was proof of alien life, and that’s when they insisted that our own Government ramp up the news blackout that had already been imposed. Since then everyone who knows the least little thing about the skeletons has been interviewed and anyone thought likely to spill the beans assigned to classified projects in the Mojave Dessert. The press is now under Government control and any published information unacceptable to the Americans has either been changed or refuted. It’s like 1984, the book I mean, and to top it all MI5 have recruited nearly a thousand spies to check up on their fellow citizens.”

         “How do you know all this?”

         “Professor Henderson,” he says, putting his hand to his mouth. “We’re friends from university. He’s in charge of the skeletons and a member of a committee advising the Government. He’s also working with the linguists and code breakers trying to work out what the gravestone says.”

         “And have they?”

         “Yes, almost. They’re runes, you see, but not like the ones the Vikings had. These are older, much older, some of the words we know and from them we’ve worked out most of the rest. What we have found is more than an obituary, it’s a prophesy of things to come, dreadful things.” He begins to hyperventilate, and I fear he’s going to have a heart attack but he manages to steady himself.  “They’re coming back, the descendants of those who were here before. We call them the Runes, and they mean to destroy every last one of us. That’s what the stone says, and who’s to say they can’t do it – they’re light years ahead of us. And that’s not all the stone says; there’s a date when all this will happen and the date is now, they’re coming now, this year, any day in the hundred and twelve still left. They may already be in Russia, that’s what the Americans think. With the internet down who knows what’s going on. It’s utter madness, any day could be our last!”

         I tell him to quieten down before he’s overheard. “Where’s the evidence for all this - some skeletons, a gravestone, lights in the sky, is that all there is?”

         Jones shakes his head, “there’s more,” he says, but a man in a suit comes towards us and sits down on the next bench. I continue speaking in a whisper but Jones won’t say another word. He gets up and heads off along the path that goes round the edge of the park. I stay where I am. Whatever happens now I need to retrieve the recorder from Jones’ briefcase, but to my surprise he’s one step ahead of me. He’s on the other side of the shrubbery where he put it. If I can glimpse him through the bushes so might the man on the bench. I slide off my wrist watch and ask him for the time and when he tells me it’s half past one I keep him looking at me by saying how nice the weather is. By the time he says a few words in response I see Jones, replete with briefcase, walking across the grass towards the exit. He waits for me outside the gate and when I catch-up with him tries to hand back the recorder. 

         “Are you sure this is mine?” I whisper. He isn’t, and as they look the same neither am I; if we don’t get this right it’s not just the Runes we have to fear.

         He looks flustered, his lips quiver, but he’s managing not to panic. “Give me five minutes and go to the back door of the museum.” He strides off and five minutes later, almost to the second, I’m there. The door’s ajar and|Jones is waiting for me on the other side. He peers out, and satisfied that no one has seen me enter, closes and locks the door. I follow him up a flight of stairs into his office. We are fortunate, he says, the museum’s closed for the day, we will not be disturbed. He has taken both recorders from his briefcase and put them on his desk which he appears to have cleared by pushing everything on it to the floor. We search in vain for some small mark or blemish that we might recognise but there are none. Jones returns them to his briefcase.

         “We will have to take a chance,” I say, “either that or spoil the tape inside, but if we do that nothing could be more obvious that we have been talking together off the record.”

         “And maybe doing more than talking.” There’s someone behind me. He sweeps by and sits down beside Jones.

         “Henderson,” I gasp, “what are you doing here?”

[To be continued]

 

Copyright Richard Banks