The Echoes

VI

 "I'm telling you, they up and up disappeared!" the highway patrol officer cried.

"We understand, Officer... Williams" Mark said patiently, "Please try to calm down. We need an accurate picture of what happened."

As Mark tried to get a legible story out of the officer, 0-1 gazed off into the early morning gloom. They had been roused a little over 2 hours ago, in the dead of night, to respond to the most dreaded situation any E-Op could encounter: unverified potentially anomalous activity. During these missions, the E-Ops had to gather information on the fly and entered dangerous situations with no knowledge of the situation whatsoever. In this case, 28 people in Buxton, North Carolina, had suddenly disappeared into thin air. It was late at night, so no one actually witnessed the disappearance, but reports had streamed in as wives suddenly found their husbands missing from their beds, and a few abandoned cars were found along the road, their doors locked and their ignition running. In a small town like Buxton, everyone knew everyone else, so it was very quickly determined who had gone missing and who had not.

"-into thin air!" Officer Williams was saying, "Mrs. Matherson just went to the other room to check on her kids, and when she came back, poof! Mr. Matherson had disappeared!"

"Any unusual activity recently?" Mark asked, "Suspicious congregations, sudden disappearances, people seeing things out of the ordinary?"

"No sir!" Officer Williams said, "It's all been quiet and peaceful, like it has been for years! Say, what government branch are you a part of again?"

"Doesn't matter," 0-1 said, "We're here to resolve this situation. I'd like to draw your attention to the individuals missing." He handed a list of names and pictures to the officer. "Any connection between them?"

Officer Williams squinted at the list for a moment, then said, "Now that I think about it, yeah. They were all regular attendees of Old Joe Mulligan's gatherings." He looked up fearfully. "You don't think he had anything to do with it, do you?"

"Relax," Mark said easily, "Chances are this is all due to a gas leak or something."

"Gas leak?" Officer Williams said doubtfully.

"Or," 0-1 said stoically, "Your Joe Mulligan has been involved in... hmm... terrorist activities."

Officer Williams immediately rejected the idea. "Impossible! No sir, Old Joe's the nicest guy you could find in town. Wouldn't hurt a fly, much less sell out his country! I guess it was a gas leak."

"Excellent," 0-1 said, "We'll start our investigation. But first, tell us where Joe Mulligan's house is."

***

0-1 and Mark strolled down the empty street, their carbines at the ready, their eyes darting left and right to respond to any threat. They had loaded their weapons with silver bullets, in case they were facing a foe sensitive to it; if not, silver bullets would work on any target just as well.

"So, this Joe Mulligan guy," Mark said, "I think he's involved with some kind of Cult. Summoned something he shouldn't have, and now all the members are killed."

"Hmm," 0-1 grunted, "That seems like the most obvious explanation. But we'd have detected a dimensional incursion if there was something summoned. According to Dr. Galanis, nothing was detected. They quite literally disappeared into thin air."

"That would suggest that the victims disappeared, uh, organically. Killed by something physical."

"Usually. But nothing was left behind, nothing unusual was seen, felt, or heard. And it all happened within the span of a couple hours at most."