You really want my version of what happened? I'm fucking embarrassed about it, but as you tell me, I couldn't help it. Seems to be a continuation of whatever happened to me when I was just a kid, which I still can't remember anything about. But this time I wish I could say it's all a blank, but no, I remember everything about it all too well. I woke up at 5:40 in the morning, I've been informed, at exactly the same time as Adam and Melly that same day. And Peter, he woke up then too. Like a switch being flipped to ON somewhere in the world. Somewhere in the Himalayas being the current theory. Man, I dunno. All I really know is that I went to bed a pretty content man with a perfect wife and a whole bunch of new friends and woke up with a deadly mission in my head: to kill a Bigfoot. Any Bigfoot would do, although I was already counting Adam out because we were buds now, so it couldn't be him. Or Magga or Masnia, they were more than friends (I may have a little thing for both of them because of the times we've been together--real close together --at those kha-rats). So I was already conflicted. I got up, went to the bathroom and Peter came in to me because he was awake too. He didn't know why either. It was unreasonably early on a cold dark March morning, with no reasonable reason to be awake at all. But we both began loading equipment into our Pontiac GTO; rifles, pistols, bullets. Evidently we were going hunting. Even though we didn't have hunting licenses and it's the wrong season for just about anything. But we were in absolute agreement that we needed to shoot something. Preferably a Bigfoot. It didn't occur to me that I was thinking any differently than normal, even though I was planning to murder some random Nokhon-- it seemed perfectly reasonable, just doing my duty to... whoever had given me my orders. Me not knowing who that was or what those orders were, me glad to be just winging it. Eager to do a good job, cheery, happy to be on a new mission. Man, I'm ashamed to admit how MOTIVATED I was. Gung-ho, no less. At least Peter had his doubts: "I don't know about this, the only Bigfoot we actually know are Adam and his friends and we don't want to shoot any of them: they're our friends too." "Oh, I know, but I've got a feeling we'll find a ripe one somewhere out by the Mother's Meadow, I've always done well there." "That's where you shot Adam's mother." I really didn't want to think about that. "Yeah well, sorry about that, we can shoot a buck this time." "Dad, I really don't want to shoot another Nokhon..." Peter didn't mention any names, probably also avoiding thinking about that. Guess he still felt guilty about having shot Adam that time. "Neither do I, son, but it's like we've been given our orders and MUST obey. We've got no choice." "Yeah, I know. Like it's our destiny calling, or something. I feel it too." So we drove off into the chilly, early dawn, soldiers on a mission.
Ma-ralla is awake much earlier than usual, long before the illumination-rods glow with transferred sunlight down into the underground city of Aket, she finds herself alone in the ancient empty streets of stone, yet she feels as if she has been reunited with her Ultimate Master once again and does not feel lonely. No, she feels embraced, inspired, ready to begin-- or rather, continue --a great work. Her weary old bones feel young again, she is filled with purpose and is on her way to gather her colleagues and start the New Revolution. She had been so grateful to be allowed back into the comfort of Aket, having been kronoke because of her misdeeds in the service of the Starda Faction, which she had been coerced to reject. She was too old to live outside in nature, the elements were too severe for her, so she had promised to not cause dissension nor strive to overthrow the Three Elders of Aket. And yet, here she goes again. She had better succeed this time or her punishment would certainly be more severe than mere exile. But no matter, she must obey the instructions that were churning in her mind; it was not a matter of choice. She would not hesitate, fueled by the wonderful psychic power of her Master from all the way over in the Great White Mountains, once again filling her with purpose and duty for His magnificent plan. It started with the utter destruction of the evil NokhSo civilization, to be followed by the restructuring of the entire Nokhon world under the leadership of her Ultimate Master, the glorious Da-starda-hat. Dillebatet, who had always been her most loyal sycophant assisting in the cruelties Ma-ralla-hata had committed when she was acting Alutna-jii, was also awake when she arrived at his tiny cave on the edge of town. He too had been re-infected with an old syssk and was ready to kill or die for the Starda Faction. They greeted as old comrades and moved on to find Dajahbet, another ancient companion, also just now rudely awakened by his re-infection, also wandering the streets looking for them. United again, they joyously began planning to replace the current Three Elders of Aket with Starda loyalists: themselves. As always, they would have to disguise the necessary fatalities as accidents. When the sunlight finally began lighting up Aket's ancient illumination-rods, it seemed like the dawning of a glorious new era to them, when they would once again have power and authority over the plebian masses of Nokhon society. Laughing and celebrating, they wandered to the Town Square in a festive mood. But the Alutna were waiting for them and took them into the police station. They were held captive until all three of the Three Elders of Aket came to confront them. Da-nama-hat told them: "We have received a telepathic message from the four remaining original Ultimate Elders of Shamballah, informing us that there has occurred a world-wide wave of obedience-syssk re-infections from the Starda Faction, which constitutes a danger to the status quo here in Aket. We believe that you three are among the infected. If not, you are free to go again. If so, we know that this is not your fault, but we will have to cure you before we can release you."
We knew exactly where to go to find our quarry. There were usually lots of sasquatches at what Art and company call their "Refugee Camp", tucked deep into the woods just a couple of miles from the Hacienda. That was where the newcomers usually stayed while first trying out the American Lifestyle. Sort of a gateway from Squatchland, part of Adam's Nokhon Nation Project. All of which I sympathize with and support-- hey, I've been trying to do my part in making the NNP succeed, I helped build the new dock at our new Naked Lake. But today I was required to shoot one of the Bigfoot guys. Didn't want to, but HAD to. No, I didn't understand it either. Our first problem was that we were way too early. It's only about 12 miles from our house in Monroe, we left about 0600 hours, so we'd parked/hidden the GTO on a side road to Old Pipe Line Road by 0620 hours, about 1½ hours before the sun comes up in March. Normally we'd just park at the Hacienda and hike out to the Refugee Camp along with Art or Adam, but we couldn't do that with our rifles. So now we had to sneak in about 3 miles through some very thick woods and creep up on some sasquatches in the dark. Couldn’t use flashlights, didn't have any military-issue night goggles. Maybe we could sneak up on normal humans, or even Apache Indians, but squatches? Not a chance. Can't really compete with them either in the woods or in the dark. So we had to wait for daylight. As for weapons, I was toting my Browning BLR Lightweight '81, .3o-06 caliber, weighing only 8 pounds. Lever-action, 4-round detachable magazine, perfect for big game. Peter had our Marlin 1895 Big Bore, which uses the .45-7o Government cartridge, just right to take on a T-Rex. But neither of us had been interested in taking our once-favorite handgun, my .44 Magnum Desert Eagle, because of our history with it. Peter wouldn't even touch it... understandable, actually. The sun came up and we moved into the woods, following a compass so as not to stray from the vector we’d calculated to lead us to a back way into the Refugee Camp. It was easy going at first, but there were no trails from this direction, just thick bush and lots of small trees. We pushed on through, but were unable to be very quiet about it. We had to pay attention not to get lost. "Like I did last year in this same place," Peter told me, "which didn't work out so good." We had to avoid Mother's Meadow; too much traffic between Hacienda House and Refugee Camp and it might be hard to explain why we were there and carrying high-caliber hunting rifles. But we came to the Refugee Camp spot on. Had to crawl on our bellies as we got near, quiet as we could. I had my rifle ready, but still had no idea of who to shoot. But that wasn't a problem because there was nobody there. So we'd have to go deeper into the rain forest to where those new huts and houses were being built. I'd been there before, visiting the site with Art, seeing how Nokhons were discovering a new way of living after coming in from the severe anti-technological rules of Squatchland that don’t allow them any kind of comfort or creativity. I thought it was admirable, what they were doing. But we had our duty, so Peter and I kept going, slowly but steadily. There’s a trail from the camp to the building sites, but we had to stay off that and move through the woods without making a sound. Eventually we could hear voices speaking Nokhontli; softly, squatches don't ever make much noise. We crawled closer until we could see a few half-finished huts, then hunkered down and waited, rifles loaded and ready. No Bigfoot in sight yet, so they had to be inside the huts, but we could wait. Our victim would be at random, which was best since I didn't really want to CHOOSE one of them. And Peter was weeping so much that he probably couldn't see properly, so I wasn’t sure he’d even get a shot off. That was okay; we only had to kill one between us… I think. Actually, I wasn't sure: we'd never gotten any orders in writing. We waited a long time, but never saw a Bigfoot and they seemed to have stopped talking. It got very quiet. Until we could finally hear someone coming through the woods, we got our rifles even more ready. But it didn't sound like a Bigfoot; way too noisy-- thump thump thump crash crash --and then a familiar voice that called out: "Da-felix, Da-peter, this is Dabronat. I must speak with you." Okay, that was a surprise. So much for sneaking up on sasquatches. Peter and I looked at each other, shrugged and sat up. No point in hiding any more. "Yeah, okay, we're over here," I called out. "Yes, I know," he said and stepped from behind a tree right next to us, huge and hairy. He said, "You're making the other Nokhons uncomfortable, hiding out here so I must ask: why are you here? And with noisekillers?" "Oh, ah, we're hunting for deer," I lied. I know that if you tell a lie to Adam he can hear it-- or smell it --whatever. But that's supposed to be because he's an Orator and it's one of his super-powers, but I wasn't sure about other squatches. "We have seen no sakilihere today," Dabronat said, not bothering to interrogate us about small details nor directly accusing me of lying. Diplomatic. I like Dabronat; he's a smart guy and one of the few squatches who can actually speak enough English to have a conversation with. He also does a lot of things to make the house-building project function. And his wife Malasna is one of the very most lovely squatch ladies at the Kha-rats, I wouldn't ever want to break her heart. So I wasn't about to shoot him. "You do understand that noisekillers make Nokhons-- what's the word? --ah, nervous!". "Yeah, got it. We'll go hunt somewhere else." "Good idea, but first I must ask you to come to Hacienda. There has been a... something happening." "Oh, we can't right now," I said "Sure we can," Peter said, contradicting me and compromising my orders, whatever they were. "Let's see what something is," he insisted. "Maybe it's the same something that’s happening to us right now." "I think so too," Dabronat said, then spread his arms wide to indicate that we should buddy-up and walk together in the direction of the Hacienda, and that he'd be close behind us. He wasn't threatening in any way, but anyone that fucking big can afford to be diplomatic.
There must be many more Nokhons who had just been re-infected around the world, some grouped in those faraway ancient Hidden Cities of Jinjada in the tropical Amazon and Chuuka in the deepest jungle in the Congo, or others found in smaller, even more isolated mini-societies unknown to anyone but themselves, such as the Trolls of Europe and Siberia, sparsely scattered over various continents and jungles and forests. Nokhons seem to be just about everywhere, even if not found in large populations. But we don't know who or where they are, or even IF they are, so we cannot tell their stories. We can only guess at how many individuals Dastardat has touched with his psychic stamp over his lifetime-- 100? 3000? --for that was how he interacted with everyone: generate a little syssk to make them compliant or helpful. Not necessarily for anything nefarious or evil, at first anyway, mostly just to make life a little easier for himself, that ugly little gnome.
While Dad and I were sneaking through the woods to... well, murder ..some random Nokhon, I was going along with it-- something was making me do it. But I'd been having misgivings all the way. Dad was obviously deeper into obedience than I was, he kept talking in military terms of our "mission" and our "objective", even though it's been over 20 years since he was a soldier. Sounded like he was living in the past. I was feeling guilty for being less dedicated to the mission than him; I really didn't want to shoot some poor innocent Bigfoot, but it seemed inevitable, just the way things were. Like we were running on rails. But we both kept getting flashes of reality now and then: dreading consequences; conflicted about our friendship with the Forest Family; how to choose who to shoot. Dad got little pissed off at me when I contradicted him to Dabronat, as if we could've just ignored his intervention. He'd caught us sneaking around locked and loaded with high-powered rifles: Nokhons don't like guns. Hell, we probably even smelled suspicious. Dabronat was taking us to the Hacienda, where "something" was going on. As we came nearer we could see a crowd of Nokhons squatting around that something. We finally saw that it was Adam they were surrounding, who was tied up with a thick rope and lying on the grass. It looked like he was going crazy, jerking around and trying to break loose, actually foaming at the mouth, totally out of control. I turned to look at my Dad and saw that he was looking just as crazy. Eyes extra-wide open, mouth too. Pokey was there, I noticed, speaking fluent Nokhontli with the squatches. He noticed us too. I could see that he did a double-take, probably wondering why we were carrying high-powered rifles. He looked worried. Yes, Dad still had his rifle in his hands, Dabronat hadn't taken them from us, probably because Nokhons hate guns so much, they can't even touch them. Suddenly Dad swings his Browning BLR into position to shoot Adam. I could see that he wasn't even thinking, this was sheer instinctive obedience to whatever thing had sent us out to kill a Bigfoot. And now that Bigfoot was going to be Adam. I was supposed to obey that thing too, but somehow I deflected Dad's Browning with my own Marlin Big Bore so his bullet went up in the air. There was no second shot because Dabronat overcame his fear of weapons and grabbed both our rifles and threw them a hundred yards away. That's when Adam noticed us. He began to shriek and scream, his craziness-level popping up over the top. He thrashed around and strained full blast to break that thick rope, so that even those other big bushy Nokhons trying to hold him were being jerked around and toppled over. But Adam was only paying attention to my Dad, eyes unblinking. It was obvious that Adam wanted to kill him. And maybe me too. Good thing he was tied up. Not so good that Dad whipped out his saw-toothed Rambo knife and got ready to attack Adam while he was helpless. I had to hold him back. I could see that same expression on both of their faces. Seems we had not just one, but two crazy guys to deal with. Adam was thrashing wilder and wilder, the fourteen Nokhons couldn't hold him still. He was frightening and familiar, I'd seen him just like that before: what Melly calls "the slobbering brute". That time he'd been infected with a syssk, I was told. He'd ripped our house apart and screamed straight into my face, which was probably when I got infected too... Suddenly I just knew that rope was going to snap. I've personally experienced how strong Adam is: he’d crippled me for half a year. Not that I didn't deserve it, just saying. Dabronat grabbed us both and carried us away like we weighed zilch. "Go!" he shouted, "Go 'way for now," and gave us a shove in the direction of Old Pipe Line Road, where somehow he knew that our GTO was waiting. I had a little struggle with Dad, he wanted to go back and strangle his enemy, but it was my turn to I shout: "Adam's going to break that rope!" All the craziness went out of his face, suddenly replaced by fear. We ran to our car and drove off, fast as Hell.
I drove, Dad was pretty much out of it, wanting to turn back and take on Adam hand-to-hand, but then he managed to realize how that would end up. By then I'd figured out that both of them were programmed to kill each other by some kind of syssk. I've been around Nokhons enough by now to know about that stuff: Sha-haka magic and all of that. I even understood that I was infected by one myself, but it had to be a lot milder than the one steering my Dad, because he was really fucked up and I was still able to think... I think. Dad was fretting about the rifles: "We've got to go back and get them so we can finish our mission. We have to kill Adam!" "Are you kidding? Those Nokhons are not going to let us shoot Adam! In fact, I'm not going to let us: he's our friend!" "But then we'll fail the mission!" he kept saying, "how can I report this to my Master?" "What report? What Master?" I asked but he couldn't answer that. At least that made him wonder: "What master? Yeah, who IS that anyway?" He was confused. Me too, but not as bad as him. We'd just recently been informed about how my Dad had been abducted as a kid and programmed to kill by an evil Bigfoot. So that when he was an adult Dad shot Adam's mother, although he still can't remember ever having met a Bigfoot when he was a kid. Seems to be the same bad dude who’s also causing all sorts of shit over in the Himalayas right now. The first syssk I'd had was almost a gift: I'd been crippled and kind of retarded, because Adam had punched me square in the chest about as hard as he could. This was first after I'd just shot him right next to the heart with a .44 Magnum, so I guess it was fair enough. But later on, when Adam and his Nokhon friends saw that I'd been cursed with a syssk that made me act crazy, they got all sympathetic and ended up healing my crippled body and even tuning up my mind, so that I was sane again-- maybe more sane than ever before. I admit it, I'd treated Adam badly ever since we were in school together, because my Dad had shot his Bigfoot mother, which grew into a worse atrocity the more Adam showed everybody how just how "human" he really was, so our families were all enemies back then. But then the squatches healed me anyway and we're all friends now. But I wasn't cursed with a syssk when I was young, all the shit I did to Adam back then, ending up with me going homicidally jealous and committing attempted murder, is only because I was an unforgivable asshole, not because I was cursed. It's like they actually cured me of being an asshole. And when I asked Adam to forgive me, he just did because he's that kind of guy. So I’m not letting him get shot again. But now I just have to get my Dad though this. We drove to Sultan to get onto Highway 2 and turned West, towards Monroe. Not that we had a plan: we were just putting distance between us and "the slobbering brute". So Dad says, "Let's swing by home, we've got more weapons there!" By now I was completely off the "mission" rails and decided that I had to keep any weapons away from him, so I said, "But Adam has probably broken loose by now and home is the first place he'll come looking for us..." and then it hit me "...Mom is there. We gotta call and tell her to leave right now!" I could almost hear Dad's brains suddenly shifting gears out of combat mode into real life: "You're right," pulling out his cell phone and punching the quick-connection home. It rang a few times, but it was still early in the day, maybe 8:30 AM, so she HAD to be home. She was, 7th ring. "Sarah? We've got an evil squatch situation, you'd better... oh, she did? You are?" Melly had already called to warn her and she had already left the house. I could hear her voice saying, "Sounds like you're driving in your car. Meet me at Pancake Palace in Bothell." So we shot through Monroe without stopping and continued on to Bothell, only about 10 miles further down the road, but far enough. Our eventual meeting place was a couple of turns off the main road, so there shouldn't be any way for Adam to find us there. We found Mom's little Ford Ka parked out in front of the Pancake Palace. She was already waiting at a table inside the restaurant. Mom was freaked out and wanted to know exactly what was going on, but Dad was having a hard time informing her that we'd been on an innocent little mission to kill some random Bigfoot and now Adam had gone berserk and wanted to kill US. He said it all wrong and got Mom kind of upset. I suddenly realized how hungry I was. So I went ahead and ordered breakfast for three: pancakes, eggs, bacon. It had been a long hard morning without food or coffee. It was okay with me that Mom was after Dad: him trying to calm her down kept his mind off the "mission" and besides, we were safe there. Nobody knew where we were, like berserker-Adam, for example. Bothell was not a place we visited much, except for this Pancake Palace once in a while. Good brunches. My cell phone rang, it was Melly; she's always had my number. "Where are you now?" she asked quickly, sounding worried, scared, breathless, stressed, whatever. Actually, her questions scared me. "Hiding from Adam,” I said, “just in case he breaks free of those ropes,” deliberately not mentioning just exactly where we were. I mean, who can you trust to not be insane just now? Not us, as Dad had proved, maybe not even Melly. "Yes, well, he did. He popped that heavy-duty tow-rope like a piece of string. And now we think he's coming after you, or your father at least." I couldn't help blurting out "Adam's loose?" Both Mom and Dad tuned in on my conversation, quick-like, eyes wide. "Totally loose in every way," Melly said, "He'd been acting like a wild animal all morning, but then when he saw your father's face he went into rampage warp-drive. He tossed all the other squatches aside and ran on down Old Pipe Line Road trying to catch your car. We lost him, he was too fast. We're guessing that he's trying to follow you by smell or something. Don't go home." Melly mentioned that she'd called Sarah to warn her, I told her "We know, she's here with us." I handed Mom my cell phone so they could update the situation. Okay, so we've all seen horror movies; this has to be when the Mad Bigfoot comes crashing through the big plate glass window into the Pancake Palace and rips everyone to pieces... Okay, that didn't happen, but I was sure worrying that it might. I started calculating the speed we had driven to where we were now, knowing Adam couldn’t possibly trace us down a freeway sniffing after our tire tracks at ninety miles an hour. At least not all the way to Bothell... not yet. Dad got that crazy look in his eyes again, "We gotta get some guns!" Mom flipped out: "You are NOT going to murder Adam! I won't allow that!" "Then he might end up murdering me! And Peter!" So of course Mom demanded an explanation, she knows a lot about Nokhons just like Dad and me--what a syssk is, for example. Problem being that we didn't really know what was going on, all we had was confusion and guesswork. Mom's solution was that we drive to Seattle and hide out until Adam-- and Dad --got back to normal. We all got into her little Ka and left the GTO parked in Bothell, just in case Adam really could follow our tires by sniffing at 90 miles an hour.
The Alutna in Aket were monitoring the behavior of the three Starda Faction loyalists who had become re-engaged into their old obedience routines. Two more showed up later that day, a male and a female, for a total of five rabid ideologists enthusiastically geared to start a re-revolution. They were being contained down in the large pit at Alutna Headquarters, but not mishandled because Nokhons understand that they were victims of a syssk-attack and temporarily not responsible for their actions. But neither had they been allowed opportunity to enact any actions since the Starda Faction was commonly suspected of committing murders. So they were considered extremely dangerous, for the moment at least. But together in that pit, after a day of promoting the Starda ideology, they suddenly changed behavior, all five simultaneously. They began to shout up to the Alutna that they had to leave Aket and stand watch somewhere in the mountains. When questioned they did not know where they should go nor why, just that they were required to go immediately. They became rather agitated when the Alutna refused to release them. Da-nama-hat the Elder went to the Alutna HQ to see for himself, asking Ma-ralla to define what new command they had been issued, undoubtedly from Da-starda-hat Himself all the way over in Shamballah. But she knew nothing except that she felt a great compulsion to be standing watch, alone upon some mountaintop with a view to the north. The other four felt the same yearning, without any of them understanding why. They were not released, of course, so they wept and moaned throughout the night and the next day. As the sun was setting, each of them complained of pain and feared death, feeling some kind of energy-storm raging around them. They were shaking and shrieking. Then all that stopped abruptly and they were found to be no longer infected by any syssks. No one knows why. They were kept in quarantine for one more day, then released. Nor have there been problems with any of them since then. "But we shall continue to observe them," Da-nama-hat stipulated.
I was supposed to have gone to work at Burlington Pacific that day, but my "mission" suddenly became more important to me and I just blew them off. Figured I'd deal with that tomorrow-- actually, I didn't figure shit; just let myself obey an impulse with no regard to tomorrow's consequences. Like murdering Adam would have had consequences. He's not just a Bigfoot: he's an American Citizen, a Media Star, an executive in the NNP and a close family friend-- murdering him might have been noticed. Peter was still going to college so it was easier for him to get away with losing a day. But knowing that it could have been US who got killed instead that day sort of put things in perspective. But anyway, we had a pretty good family day in Seattle: Pike Street Market, the tossing of the fish, an organic lunch. Except that being near the pawn shops on 1st Avenue reminded me that I wanted to buy a gun and bullets, but Sarah steered me off; took my wallet, credit cards, etc. I almost went macho and overpowered her, but Peter backed her up-- good lad --although we did cause kind of a scene on the sidewalk. But then, the Ye Olde Curiosity Shop on the waterfront, checking out the sales at the Bon Marché, Tower Books, visiting the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Discovery Center. We even managed to forget about the monster out to kill us, whom we normally consider one of our best friends. Anyway, he never found us, and nobody died. Anticlimactic, I know, sorry. But about 3:00 in the afternoon things got weird. First I noticed that although I'd been trying to plot how to get a weapon all this time, suddenly I was glad I hadn't gotten one. I understood that my "mission" was cancelled. I started laughing, so relieved that I hadn't shot anyone. Or been disemboweled by Adam The Wild Bigfoot. Just then Melly called Peter again, saying that Adam wasn't after us anymore. Peter held his phone up so we could all hear her voice, "He seems back to normal... almost." "That's funny," Peter said, "so is my Dad, just now. And me, I think." "Well, it's not over yet," Melly was saying, "whatever it is: our syssks are still affecting us, but something's shifted. Here, Adam wants to talk to you." "Hi Peter, you guys okay?" "I dunno yet. You still gonna eat us?" "I guess not. Too bad, coulda been tasty," he said. "Actually, sorry if I scared you, but I couldn't help it. It was like I had a beehive in my brain." "Well, Adam, we get that," I spoke up so he could hear me, "we were being pretty damn scary too. But Melly says it's not over yet." "Apparently not. As far as I can tell that curse has been replaced by another one, but I think this time we are expected to co-operate." "Co-operate? Doing what?" "I have no idea. Just that I'm required to go somewhere and stand guard, facing north. And I'll bet you are too. Melly is, so maybe Peter too. And, it seems, a whole bunch of other Nokhons around the world. Don't ask me how I know, I just do."
At first I didn't believe that we had a "new unknown mission", I'd felt so free, but it didn't take long for us to find out that we were still under orders that had to be obeyed even though we didn't know what they were. I felt a need to go to Marysville, just north of Everett and Peter had to go visit Mukilteo We drove back to Bothell so that I could retrieve my GTO and Sarah drove Peter to wherever he "felt" he should be in Mukilteo. I tried to resist, but found myself driving to Marysville, for who knows what reason. I know the area fairly well, from working for Burlington, and I wondered if it was because of that. But really, it seemed to make no sense at all. I pulled off the I-5 just after the bridge and drove under the freeway, west to Priest Point and stopped at a shabby little industrial marina with a view of the Ebey Slough and some marshlands. Middle of nowhere. Got out of the car and walked out to the end of a dock and just stood there, facing north. Seems I was to "guard" the coastline, not knowing against what. So I took position at a cafe on the dock and looked out over Puget Sound. Facing north at all times, not the foggiest clue of what I was doing there. It got late, the marina closed; I had to go stand on the shore. Spent the night there, but not sleeping, hungry and thirsty. It was a long watch, starting at 4:03 PM Wednesday afternoon until 7:09 PM Thursday evening; 27 hours 4 minutes. Then it got all electric-like, magnetic, the fillings in my teeth stung, skin tingling, hard to breathe. Hurting pretty bad near the end, like not just the end of me but of the whole world. Really scary. Then it all just quit. The pain stopped, I could look away from north, I could go collapse in my car. Evidently I was free to go home, so that's what I did. Without understanding shit about what had happened. Colossal waste of time, but still better than having to kill somebody.
By the time Elaine and I had gotten back home (from visiting old friends Steve and Marie Bonneville in Bellingham), most of Wednesday's potentially homicidal syssk-drama seemed to be done, without anyone being killed or hurt. Melly had called Elaine's cell to tell us of the situation while we were underway and Elaine called Sarah Sinsley, who informed us that she was downtown Seattle with Felix and Peter and assured us that they were no longer programmed to be fanatical murderers. We arrived at the Hacienda about 3:30 pm, just after Pokey had brought Adam home from trying to attack the Sinsley's house. Fortunately, the Sinsleys were in Seattle instead of home because Melly had called to warn them that Adam was coming to murder them. But Adam seemed to be completely rational again when we saw him. So we all assumed the incident was over with and allowed ourselves to feel relieved.
But that had only been Phase One of the episode, which went on until 9:00 the next evening. We had a meeting of all participants to determine what had happened, but we were just guessing and worrying and wondering until Saturday morning, when Dambaraggan came with the news.
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