Jamie's Story

Part 1

Hello Jamie.  You might be wondering why you're watching this.  I got into a bit of trouble and won't be home soon.  Well, I don't really know how long I'll be.  Could be quite a while.  There have been some... odities around here lately, and I'm the only one qualified to investigate what they are.  You know all those stories I told you as a child?  Well, they're true. I really am an alien, and I really do have a wide range of experience with non-terrestrial beings and events, as well as many unusual earthly ones.  Best keep that in mind.  I've no idea what I will be encountering, and it could be dangerous.  I want you to know that in case anything goes wrong. Not that anything will go wrong.  I did this thousands of times back before you were born.  But just in case, I need you to look out for Anabell and your Mum.  If all goes to plan, you'll see me in a little while and you can ignore this.  I'm probably just getting paranoid in my old age.  Just remember, the stories were true.  Sometimes reality can be stranger than fiction, and I need you to be on the lookout for anything out of the ordinary.  I know you stopped believing me many years ago, but your old enough now to know the truth.  Well, I guess I should be seeing you in a little while.  I'm just being your old overprotective Dad.  I love you, son.

Jamie looked down at the videotape tape in his hand, internally groaning at yet another of his father's oddities. Why couldn't he have a normal Dad who played sport and didn't constantly try to insist that he was of alien origins? At least his mother was somewhat normal to compensate.

"Whatcha doin'," asked his little sister, Anabell, pocking her head around the corner of his door.

"Get out of my room Ana!" Jamie shouted as he ran to the door to reclaim his privacy.  Honestly, he was almost 17.  Wasn't he old enough to have a doorlock?

Ana stuck her foot in the door before Jamie could shut it. "What were you listening to?  Come on, let me see!"

"It's just Dad being weird again." Jamie tried to push his sister's foot out of the gap in the doorway to no success.  "Why don't you get back to reinventing the wheel or whatever it is you do in your spare time?"

"I am trying to revive an old DVD player from pre-2007 thank you very much.  The image and sound quality is vastly superior to your ye olde VHS tapes."

"They're Betamax tapes for your information," retorted Jamie, strongly offended, "and they work perfectly well"

"Whatever, Cyberphobe," replied Ana.

"Keep it down in there you two," their Mum called from the living room.  "I'm trying to work."

Ana left Jamie's doorway in a huff.  The quest for fraternal annoyance wasn't worth it.

The next 24 hours passed without incident.  Their Mum threatened to cook dinner before being persuaded to order pizzas, Ana tried to watch the moon through her telescope despite the light polution while Jamie read a book, they woke up the next morning and went to school with classes as usual, and arrived home without anything out of the odinary occuring.  Yet Jamie's Dad still hadn't returned home.

"Do you have any idea where your Dad is?" Jamie's Mum asked him as the evening wore on and his Dad was still missing.

"He left me a weird message yesterday saying something about him being away for a while.  He didn't know how long," Jamie replied.

His Mum's forehead creased in concern, but otherwise the evening continued as usual.

Almost a week passed, yet there was still no sign of Jamie's Dad.  It was on the Thursday morning that the first oddity occured.  He was awoken not by the bleeping of his alarm clock but by his Mum hurrying him awake.  The clock itself was as lifeless as a rock, and so too did it seem were all the other alarm clocks his family relied on for timely awakening.  It wasn't just the clocks either; the power had gone out in the whole house.

Now this in itself wasn't particularly unusual, although a blackout in the middle of London was reasonably rare (thankfully).  It was the cause of the blackout which made Jamie think back to his father's warning.  As their mother rushed them to school in the family's small yellow saloon car, Jamie saw a strange mechanical metal object trapped between the powerlines, sparking slightly as it swung in the morning breeze.  It was an object like none he had seen before.  If it wasn't for his father's warning, he wouldn't have thought anything of it, but now...

"It must have shorted out the wires and caused the blackout," Ana said as she leaned over to look out Jamie's window.

This was feeling uncomfortably like the start of one of his Dad's stories, but how could that be?  The stories were a fantasy designed to entertain and caution Jamie and his sister.  They couldn't possibly be true.  Monters weren't real, aliens didn't have any interest in Earth, and time travel was definitely impossible.  He was being childish and silly.  The metal thing was probably just a toy of one of the local kids.  Why should he think otherwise?

...Just remember, the stories were true.  Sometimes reality can be stranger than fiction, and I need you to be on the lookout for anything out of the ordinary.  I know you stopped believing me many years ago, but your old enough now to know the truth...