driving down the road late at night i picked something up out of the corner of my eye. i decided to pull off to the side of the road, and there i stood in the low, gloomy light of the stars in a moonless night. there was something back there. something in that wide open field. i could see it moving. no – i could see them moving low to the ground, all hovering and moving as if they were army guys on a training mission. they were crawling towards a group of hills that were to my left. then i heard a shout, low, muffled, in another language. suddenly i realized i was standing there, gawking at the scene; i got down to the ground. they probably saw my car, whatever they were, saw me turn off to the side of the road, so i got down and started crawling in the other direction, looking for some place to watch…well, whatever was going on. i sat behind some smallish rocks twenty meters away and saw, sure enough, a few of the humps begin changing direction and moving towards my car, and what i saw made me catch my breath and hold my mouth – the figures stood up straight and they were each ten feet tall, with long, long spindly legs heading up towards small torsos, with arms that were no thicker than pencils snaking out from their sides. they examined my car and found nothing inside. they turned about and inspected the ground for evidence of me. one of them pointed to something on the ground. they all looked at the area indicated, then, sure enough, started moving towards me. don’t move. stay close to the ground, a voice said, and next to me was a woman with a large pistol. it took all my nerve not to scream in fright. she cupped her hand over my mouth and pushed me quite forcibly to the ground. there were more shouts, closer, not from the things by my car but from behind us. the other figures continued moving towards the hills, when suddenly there were fireworks – loud pops and gunfire that came red from the hills aimed at the figures, who instantly stood on those unnervingly narrow legs and began unleashing some sort of agents from their bodies, like missiles, but more organic and without that, you know, fire that comes out of the back of missiles. two of the three creatures by my car turned and fired toward the hills, but the third one contuined its investigative pursuit for me, following my tracks. in the firefight the woman held me down and again repeated instructions for me not to move. then the figure grew closer, about five meters away and before i could try and watch what was happening she let fly a few rounds of ammunition into the figure, which dissipated instantly. we better get out of here, she said. you shot it, right? no – i only made it mad, she answered, and grabbed my arm to hoist me up.
