Globe Tracers 1: The Case of Thomas Crain

Chapter 2: Welcome to Earth

February thirteenth.

The sky was black, and I, werewolf Allen Reign, stood in an open field.

I couldn't see a single star. The night was blank, not cold, not hot, no stars, no wind, all I had to focus on were my thoughts.

You might expect seeing them coming would be easy, right? When they rained down hundreds of years ago during the Purge, they lit up the daytime sky in fire. But I couldn't see anything as I scanned the horizon.

I pulled my jacket around myself, but not from cold- more to feel whatever safety I could.

I was told their ship would be arriving around this time, nineteen thirty.

That's seven-thirty p.m. as my wife had been teaching our son Jaden. Jaden was with me today. He told me he wanted to know what Pharaohs looked like. Four-years-old and ever curious, even when I told him they were nothing to look at, his imagination still soared when he heard they were from space. My wife even told him that the young Pharaoh I would be looking after wasn't much older than him, which made him think they could be friends. Yeah,... not much older... by who's definition of age?

I thought back on our history. I was scared. The first time our species met, the Pharaohs had come down from the sky and nearly slaughtered an entire race known as the gargoyles. Now, I was charged with protecting the son of their country's head of state, the only child of their president. If I screwed this up, my entire world could burn.

Jaden hugged my leg, hiding himself from the cold under my long jacket. I could sense he was getting tired. I was, too; we'd been waiting out here for half an hour.

The night was getting colder, but I didn't want to shiver. It would make me look weak. I instead tightened my grip on old Calamity Jane, my twelve-gauge shotgun. Beside me stood Frank, my backup, a mutant known as a "wild man". He carried a few five and ten-pound dumbbells in his jacket- if you knew him, you'd understand.

Why were we armed? One word: gargoyles. Their remnants would have done anything to sever ties between the mutants on Earth and those in the stars.

It started to rain. Great! At least now I knew why I couldn't see the stars.

Only Frank had thought to bring an actual hooded raincoat. My cotton overcoat would soon be soaked as we stood in the open. More concerning, rain made noise, and so made it harder to hear monsters sneaking up on you... 'c'mon, Mr. Reign, get hold of yourself. You'll see them easy in this open field if they attack unless they just choose to snipe you off at a distance. Then what can you do anyway?' I thought.

And what did the rest of humanity think about all this? Oh, don't you know? None of us exist. Werewolves and gargoyles are folklore, and wild men are just people who have had too much to drink. And Pharaohs... what are those? For what it's worth, they were also often called fairies. Hundreds of years ago, humanity feared us and other mutants and would have done anything to be rid of us, often trying to kill us, calling us unholy abominations. So we spread stories about ourselves in tall tales of heroes and horrors, all too fantastic to believe. Soon enough, no one believed we were real in the first place, so in a way, everyone got their wish. We were left alone, and the normal humans believed there were no more monsters haunting the night. Keeping up facades wasn't too hard. After all, when not fighting, most mutants looked like normal humans.

I gripped my weapon tighter again, looking at my friend Frankie, who looked at me with the same toothy grin he had on the entire ride over here. Of course, he didn't actually put up his hood- constantly having to prove how tough he was.

"So hey, Mac," said Frankie, "You tried that new cola... what was it called again? The red stuff. It's cherry-flavored."

"You're thinking about that at a time like this?" I asked.