Our mission is to ascertain the presence or absence of aliens bent on the conquest of humanity. If absence, whatever we find will be filed as poltergeist activity, per agency policy. It seems we will be met in Bath, and take a plane to Millinocket. Our cover story (if you can call it that) is that we are commodities brokers looking into the local timber market. I suppose they could have come up with something less likely. I must put aside my doubts and face the future prepared for anything. If only my parents could have lived to see this day.
    

November 16

Still more new experiences—my first time in an airplane. And suggestions of what awaits us when we make our way north.
    It was a very small plane, I couldn't help but notice as we crossed the field toward it, while the first rays of the sun were coming over the horizon.
    "Hi, looks like you guys are my seven o'clock flight," a voice called out in the heavy local accent.
    "I guess so," I replied uncertainly.
    "Morning," Kane said without enthusiasm. It seems that daylight won't kill him, but he does find it very painful.
    Adam carefully centered himself in the cramped passenger space, not wishing his great weight to unbalance the craft, scarf pulled tight and fedora down over his face. Kane wrapped himself in a blanket and burrowed back into the cargo area where there were no windows. That left me to sit beside the pilot, somewhat nervously I must admit as I looked out the window.
    "Millinocket, eh?" he said in an accent with which I was shortly to grow quite familiar.
    "Yes," I told him.
    The plane started up. The pilot asked no questions about our choice of destination, which came as something of a relief. "What happened to your other guy?" he did wonder at one point, glancing back.
    Sleeping, Adam told him in the gesture language.
    After another silent period, "You hear about that funny stuff going on up there?" the pilot asked.
    "No, we just came up yesterday," I told him, trying to remember what I'd been told about getting information from witnesses. "What stuff?"
    "What stuff?" he asked blankly.
    I paused, mentally reviewed the past few moments, and extended a cautious mental touch to see if there was anyone at home so to speak in the pilot's chair. He had already lost the thought-thread, it seemed, and I sensed the presence of heavily repressed memories. Perhaps he had been abducted by the aliens. I was of no mind to evoke something so deeply buried while we were—I glanced out the window and found myself gripping the seat much more tightly—very high above a green, brown, and white sea.
    "You hear about the funny stuff up there?" he asked again.
    "No, I didn't." Experimentally.
    "Flashing lights. People getting...." He took on a thousand-yard stare and fell silent. "Here we are, up ahead."
    "Oh, good. Good."
    There was a short, uncomfortable silence as I pondered.
    "Ah. Strip's not iced up."
    "Good," I repeated with feeling. "I haven't really flown before, so...."
    "First time?"
    "Uh-huh."
    "Enjoying it?"
    "Um..."
    "Peanut?" he offered.
    "Thank you."
    "Got in ahead of the fog," he noted.
    Once we get the wheels down we'll take care of that, I caught Kane's grim thought. I must say the landing process was quite instructive. I did not expect bouncing. I wonder if they're supposed to do that?
    "Supposed to snow later," the pilot said as the fog bank rolled in rapidly all around. "Wow. Beat the fog by a little."
    "Is it normal to get fog at this time of year?" I asked, looking around. What little I had seen before the weather changed suggested that we were not too far from what must be the town, situated on a small lake. The airstrip (if it could be called such) consists of a couple of large buildings for storing equipment and a smaller one, little more than a cabin, where people may warm themselves after disembarking.
    "Oh yeah. Just part of the funny stuff going on."
    Now that we were safely on the ground I decided to find out what he had been keeping from himself. Someone else was walking toward us, from the look of him one of the local youngsters. From train station experience I expected that he would try to give us directions, carry bags, and make a little bit of money off the new arrivals. The pilot had probably told everyone in town we were on our way. From this point forward we must try to act like timber brokers, however that is.
    "Evening," the new arrival said. "Give you a hand, carry your stuff into town? I got a car."
    "How far?" Kane asked.
    "Just a couple of miles that way." He jerked a thumb at the road.
    "Give us a minute, I'm sure you can at least grab the lady's bags." All of them are extremely heavy; Kane believes that it is easier to bring something you don't need, than to use something you have forgotten to pack, a philosophy with which I find myself in agreement. We are fully equipped as his years of experience can provide for.
    "Yessir."
    "So, funny stuff happening," I said to the pilot, regaining his attention.
    "Yeah. There was some funny stuff." He nodded, getting that faraway look again.
    "Funny, how?" I dug carefully for the suppressed memory.
    "Oh... " He started speaking in an odd, high-pitched monotone. "Funny like the time the bright flashing lights dragged my plane down to the ground, and while I was there on the ground, escorting some people back, the creatures came out from the snow, vanishing whenever I wasn't directly looking at them and ripping my passengers to small pieces as their blood soaked away into the snow and disappeared. You know. Funny stuff. And then, and then—" He gave a low, shuddering cry, and staggered down to one knee; I hastily pushed the memory back into his subconscious and reached down to his shoulder.
    "Are you okay, sir?"
    After a moment he seemed to get his bearings. "Oh, yeah."

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