Man's Best Friend

A dog can be a loyal companion in trying times. One of the investigators has a dog – as a faithful guardian, a reliable tracker, and someone he can always trust. Today, however, there appears to be something wrong - as the investigator comes downstairs, it stands in the hall, growling up at him. It doesn’t seem to want to come upstairs, but won’t let him go down.

Possibilities

1 The dog was scratching around in nearby woods a few days ago when it unearthed a Traveller larva, swallowed it and was possessed. The alien’s ship fell to Earth in an asteroid shower a centuries ago and this entity has only recently been disturbed by the dog’s digging.

The Traveller now seeks a more suitable host and wants to trap the human upstairs until it can attack more effectively - though it has control of the dog and could reanimate it if killed, it cannot yet make the special filament attacks typical of mature Travellers.

Meanwhile, the investigator might recall that the dog has been acting peculiar since going for a run in the woods a few days ago.

2 A sadistic serial-killer attacked the investigator last night and died, but the shans that controlled him simply flew into the investigator’s brain. It made him dump the body and then blanked his memory of the event. The dog can detect the creature, but does not wish to hurt its master.

By day, when the alien sleeps, the investigator notices gaps in his memory (such as not recalling anything in the papers about a serial-killer before, though it has been a lead story for weeks) and small clues that the shans has not yet had time to twist. By night, the alien is active, editing memories and making him kill sadistically, starting with the dog. It even adds memories from previous homicidal hosts, although the investigator’s friends have ready alibis for him in most of those cases.

3 The dog is trying to warn its master to stay upstairs – the centre of the kitchen floor is starting to subside, and the faint scrapings and slippages have distressed the animal all night. A little weight or a little more decay reveals that this part of the house was built over an old well. After many years, dampness in the shaft has decayed the capstone, resulting in subsidence.

On examination this shaft is found to be quite dry – the capstone has been chipped away from beneath until it collapsed. At the bottom of the well are piles of bones. Most are those of children, but those at the top of the pile belong to an adult. Research discovers that the local landowner was thrown into this well after it was discovered that he cast children into it as sacrifices to his dark god. By night, the sorcerer’s skeleton scales the walls to chip away at the stone used to seal him in.

© Pete Wright

From the (Spaces Between) Stars

Two-thirty a.m. is a time when town is quiet, save only for the quick footfalls of a stray wanderer, swiftly heading for home. The investigators have just rounded off a successful evening of cards and are bidding their host a good morning.

Suddenly, the peace is broken by an ear-piercing roar as a crepuscular shape hurtles through the sky leaving a phosphorescent haze trailing behind it. The object’s path of descent sends it hurtling into the clouded depths of the town’s lake. Residents stagger from their houses and before long a crowd has gathered at the lake’s edge. Onlookers can discern a nebulous, viridian glow spreading beneath the surface of the water; it pulses regularly like the rhythmic pounding of a giant heartbeat.

The following morning, the meteor (the most accepted explanation) has become the focus of all conversations. One man speculates that perhaps H.G.Wells’ Martians were not purely the work of fiction. Another speaks of a terrible discovery made by the town fishermen. The lake’s aquatic denizens are dead. The corpses drift across the surface of the water yet bear no mark of injury. If tested, the lake now registers radioactivity.

Possibilities

1 Many of the townsfolk have made frenzied calls to the authorities, eliciting an unexpected response; that evening a full military task force mobilises on the edge of town. The lake and surrounding area is cordoned off, the guards equipped with firearms. The military begin a systematic evacuation of the town; complaints are ignored. The inhabitants are warned not to speak to anyone about their memory of the preceding night. All photographs pertaining to the object (even those of the glowing lake or dead fish) are confiscated. A full news blackout of the event has been imposed upon news stations. The military has threatened to revoke their licences if any details of the event are transmitted.

Depending upon who they approach, the investigators receive contradictory information. The object could be described as any of the following: a simple meteorite, an advertisement balloon, a parachutist or a foreign explosive device (or any other equally implausible explanation).

Just what are the military hiding? How does it involve the “meteorite”?

2 The lake now houses an invader, a being that feeds upon life itself, a Colour Out of Space.

The Colour, like so many of its race, has crossed the cosmos in search of a world capable of sustaining its near-insatiable appetite. After countless years of wandering it finally discovered the Earth. In order to avoid the sun’s impeding rays, the creature made its descent under the cover of darkness. It now resides on the lake’s bed, hidden from the sun’s rays by a murky, liquid shroud.

The creature hunts by night. Since the lake has now been drained of food it will leave the water’s protection and seek sustenance beyond. While quite content to feed on the abundant undergrowth, it will attack any humans who approach it or try to harm it. The Colour spends the daylight hours drilling into the lake’s bed forming a narrow tunnel, when this is complete it will create the embryonic spheres in which to house its young.

3 At some point in humanity’s recent history the Earth became home to a small group of the parasitic Shan (aka The Insects from Shaggai). The Shan race had already colonised many worlds, both throughout and beyond our solar system. Their next target was to be the Earth. They were instead trapped upon it, unable to teleport away due to a mysterious element in the Earth’s atmosphere.

The “meteor” is a Shan scout-vessel. The Shan have deduced that their teleportation-temples will not function and have sent a spacecraft (powered by the pilot’s psychokinetic capability).

The pilot has two objectives: firstly, it must reclaim one of the indestructible teleportation-temples that lies abandoned and forgotten at the base of the lake; secondly, it must assess the Earth’s potential for invasion. The first night will be spent loading the pyramid aboard its vessel, subsequent nights will find the creature leaving the lake and assessing humanity’s strength.

If the creature believes that the Earth would be a suitable target for invasion it will activate a beacon. That night, the sky will be filled with the falling "meteors", that blaze one-by-one into the lake’s irradiated waters.

© Hadley Connor