The Specimen

by Tim Stout

Christopher was ready to give up and go home for the night when he noticed the strange throbbing. Since twilight, the fifteen year old naturalist had been huddling motionless against a tree stump deep in Noakey Wood, hoping to see the family of badgers emerge from their sett, but after watching for two fruitless hours, he was cold and cramped and had grown thoroughly sick of the whole thing. The wretched badgers must have given him the slip. They were probably miles away by now, foraging in the distant meadows beneath the full moon. Well, there was no point in waiting beside an empty burrow. Stiffly he got to his feet. It was while he was making his way to the bush in which he had left his bicycle that the throbbing attracted his attention.

He paused and listened. Just a plane droning by, that was all. And yet the noise wasn't overhead, was it? It seemed to be coming from underneath the ground.

Christopher began to feel uneasy. Not a breath of wind was stirring, yet every tree in the clearing had started to rustle. Birds roosting in the big old oaks were twittering in alarm and quitting their perches. There was certainly something down there. He could sense the vibrations himself, pounding up through the earth.

Whatever was coming, it seemed a good idea to be as far away as possible when it broke surface. He made a dash for his bicycle, but already it was too late to escape. Before he could reach the bush, a violent tremor of the earth flung him off his feet.

As the frightened Christopher picked himself out of the bracken, he saw the ground tremble as if a giant fist were pummelling it from below. Cracks and fissures appeared around him. He clutched at an oak for support, and felt the sturdy trunk shudder in its roots. Was this an earthquake? Surely not - not in safe, settled England?

The oak creaked and lurched to one side. There was a colossal eruption of soil followed by a boom like the bellow of a genie set free. A streamlined metal mass the size of a house heaved up out of the ground.

Stones, severed branches and clouds of clay thudded across the clearing. Ten, twenty, thirty feet into the air rose the spinning pillar, thrusting conical shoulders between the trees until it's smoking point slowed to a halt high above the woodland floor. It's revolutions ceased and the clearing settled into a deep hush, broken only by the sizzle of damp leaves brushing the hot hull.

Christopher gazed awestruck at the enormous machine. Glittering in the moonlight, it loomed over him like a beckoning steel finger. He stared at the crater of churned clay and his eyes travelled up the dirt-streaked flanks to the flanged tip, which was still smouldering a dull red from the friction of its hurtling passage through the earth. Goodness knows what it was, or how much of it was still below the ground.

Seconds passed. He watched crusts of scorched soil fall from its sides and listened to the slow tick of cooling metal. Nothing happened and gradually his fear ebbed away. He came out from behind the oak and was tiptoeing forward for a closer look when suddenly a hatchway opened its round black mouth.

From the cylinder's dark interior issued a hollow sigh. Moments later, a howling current of air sprang up, snatching at every loose leaf, twig and acorn within the clearing. Christopher tried to scramble for cover in the undergrowth but he too was whisked up like a feather beneath a vacuum cleaner and sucked into the mysterious machine.