Approximately one hundred and seventy-five years ago at the time of this writing, four disoriented human abductees, two oxen, and a frightened dog crossed through a portal and into another world. They had been led by someone or something, but their memories were fragmented. As they regained their senses, it dawned on them that beyond the portal behind them lay their homeworld: the Earth in which the year was 1850. The party stood in awe and silence as the gateway gently crackled with weird energy in the quiet evening. In the distance, a great horned owl hooted and suddenly the portal collapsed upon itself like a mouse trap leaving the humans blinking in confusion.
After a moment, teenage Myrl Bel, clutching her belt knife, turned to her dog and asked, “What was that?” Roxy, a black labrador-blue heeler mix, looked back up at the girl with big scared eyes and leaned into Myrl’s leg, trembling.
“Where is everyone?” said Gertrude Baxton. The old shrew, her face hidden in a bonnet, clutched her bible close to her heart. “Is this California?”
“Alright people, it looks like we were separated from the group. Let's do a head count and inventory,” said Gertrude’s middle-aged son, Junior Baxton. In Indiana, he had run three grocery stores, a manufacturing company, a tavern, and a barbershop. He was the leader of their expedition and a pretty good one, Myrl thought, but the headcount and inventory wouldn’t take long. Their main caravan had well over one hundred wagons, but now there was only one.
Where were they, Myrl wondered glancing around at the rocky terrain, shrubs, and saguaro.
“No, this isn’t California,” said Lailoken Bel, Myrl’s adopted father, who was now squatting, pressing his palm to the soil and closing his eyes. Her stepdad had powers: Earth magick.
“What is it, Lailoken?” said Junior. “Do you know where we are?” If anyone knew where they were, it would be Myrl’s stepdad. Although rarely discussed openly, Lailoken, a Scottish mystic was a skilled dowser and geomancer. Junior had hired Lialoken to locate water, choose favorable homestead locations, and--most importantly--divine the location of gold and other treasures. Lailoken could also predict the weather. His ability to find water and choose favorable routes had kept their wagon train alive thus far.
Lailoken stood, squinted at the pre-dawn sky, adjusted his round spectacles, and said, “The stars are different.”
***
Shortly after dawn, they discovered a fifth party member and he was dying horribly. Myrl grimaced at the yucky vomiting sounds coming from the wagon. Junior Baxton's son J.J. Junior had contracted dysentery a week ago, and it was a miracle he had lasted this far. The smell was enough to make someone gag, Myrl thought. While Gertrude prayed over her grandson, her father and Junior put together a plan of action, Myrl decided to explore.
What creatures lurked beneath the boulders and lived in these sandstone rock formations, she wondered, as a brown lizard zipped past her moccasin. The moccasins, made with care by her late Miami mother, reminded Myrl of the family she had lost and the one she still had. American soldiers killed her birth father, and her mother, despite her strength, succumbed to disease shortly after she and Lialoken were married. Myrl had been just a baby when Lailoken, her stepfather, became the only parent she knew. He had raised her with care and an understanding of both her Miami roots and the magickal secrets he wielded. Catching the lizard gently, she placed it on her shoulder and smiled as she looked up at a condor circling overhead, waving a quiet good morning. Myrl and Roxy meandered under a copse of cottonwood trees in which a family of squirrels paused their antics to chitter at the girl and her dog. Myrl chittered back. Myrl wandered a bit more, admiring the nearby pastel mountain range in the sunrise as she took in the new sights and Roxy took in the new scents. She crouched to admire a pink cactus flower when a set of enormous animal tracks--maybe a cougar or jaguar--caught her eye. She looked around, wearily scanning nearby Joshua trees and brush. The tracks seemed fresh. They would have to be careful, she thought, her eyes narrowing. Myrl turned to head back towards the wagon, when the air before her shimmered, and a tall humanoid figure suddenly appeared.
It was over seven feet tall with the head of a praying mantis and dressed in a plum-colored robe. Its proportions were somewhat humanoid, but instead of arms, elongated spiked forelimbs protruded from the sleeves of its gown. The creature smelled sweet but acidic, like apple pie and vinegar. Acting from a place of pure instinct, Myrl pulled her belt knife and lunged forward to drive the blade home in the creature’s stomach--or abdomen--but then a preternatural calm settled over her like a cozy invisible blanket. She sheathed her knife. She looked up into the Mantis’s unknowable shiny black eyes, its overly large mandibles opening and closing. It began to speak to her.
The tall insectoid spoke in a confounding combination of words and pictures that appeared inside Myrl’s head. For some reason, she felt that the silent transmission was coming from the Mantid’s antenna which moved hypnotically, and made her feel both comforted and fuzzy, like eating a warm meal with lots of wine. Although difficult for Myrl to interpret, this is roughly what the creature said:
The Mantid introduced itself as a cosmic emissary of sorts, an intergalactic ambassador of goodwill. According to the Mantid, Myrl and her companions had been taken from the Earth and placed here on a new planet by a group of very powerful extraterrestrials from the Zeta Reticuli star system. Myrl got the impression that the Mantid was a different species from the extraterrestrials that it claimed abducted her, but…it was all so confusing. According to the Mantid, Myrl and her companions had been chosen to colonize this planet--a planet that had been terraformed to match their homeworld of Earth. Myrl wasn’t sure what terraforming was and she quickly became lost when it described the Zeta Reticulan agenda. She didn’t understand what “DNA reengineering”, “hybridization project”, “dream harvest”, and “gold hunger” meant, but it all sounded creepy. The Mantid continued in this manner for quite some time, talking of past off-world human colonization attempts, force fields, antigravity, and how to fold spacetime. As is offered Myrl insights into advanced technologies that would prove useful on this new planet, her eyelids grew heavy.
Finally, the Mantid presented her with a map printed on a flexible gold tablet with raised markings and symbols. “This is where you are,” said the Mantid, pointing with one of its forelegs to a point on the map, “and this is where you need to go,” It pointed to another spot, and telepathically told her, “That’s the meeting point.”
“Why? Why do we have to go there?” asked Myrl.
“If you want to survive, that’s where you have to go. Trust me,” it said, in more pictures than words, and with that final piece of advice the Mantid vanished, leaving Myrl standing there lamely holding the Golden Map in her hands until Roxy barked and woke Myrl from her stupor.
***
“May I,” Lailoken asked, gesturing toward the map Myrl had cradled under her arm. She passed the map over to her father and he ran his fingers over the raised marking on the tablet like he was reading braille. “This was made by no Earthy hand,” he whispered. Lailoken pulled out a pendulum--a small quartz crystal hanging from a brass chain--and dangled it over the surface of the Golden Map to which the pendulum began to dance and rotate erratically.
Myrl remembered the Mantid’s final message and showed them the two points on the map: “This is where we are,” she said, “and this is where we are supposed to go. It’s the meeting point.”
After sharing her story and the Golden Map, there was much discussion. Old Gertrude was convinced that Myrl had met a messenger from God and Junior remained skeptical but trusted in Lailoken to lead them to safety. From the back of the wagon, J.J. Junior wretched again.
Two days passed without event as the party followed the map south along the edge of a mountain range. Lailoken divined the location of a river bed where they could wash and fill up on water. Although desert, the land was plentiful and Myrl caught four rabbits. The local cactus, when cooked, was quite good. To better judge the new and strange land, they ascended a nearby hillside to survey the unfamiliar terrain. They hoped to view distant landmarks like lakes and ridges that corresponded to the markings on the Golden Map. As they rounded a corner at the top of the rise, they all stopped at once, frozen in quiet reverence as they witnessed a spectacular confluence of Sky Ships and other bizarre airborne objects levitating high above the valley below in uncanny choreography.
“Angels in Heaven,” Gertrude’s eyes glistened wetly as she hugged her bible.
While this seemingly supernatural display entranced the group, Roxy trembled with fear, at which Myrl crouched and hugged her shivering dog. After a while the vessels seemed to drift apart as the show in the clouds concluded, leaving the pioneers dumbstruck with wonder.
***
There were many trials and tribulations along the trail. On the fourth day, the party discovered local oranges growing in an oasis and experienced first-hand, their psychoactive, vision-inducing properties, causing them to lose an entire day of travel. Roxy was stung on the face by a bee and J.J. Junior finally died of his dysentery. They buried him in a shallow grave, covered his body in rocks, and held a funeral. While Gertrude sobbed over her grandson and Junior recalled the good times he had shared with his departed boy, Myrl and Roxy wandered away from the group and discovered a large wooden crate, nearly as large as their wagon.
Later, after the funeral, the party went to investigate Myrl’s discovery. Lailoken took the crate’s measure with his pendulum. The crystal at the end of his chain began to spin counterclockwise. “I don’t think we should open it,” he said.
“But it could contain supplies or even food,” Junior argued. He had a good point, so Lailoken gave in and with much heaving and lots of elbow grease, the two men pried the huge crate open. Standing inside was an unsettling machine-like person who appeared to be sleeping, for one could see the rise and fall of its metallic chest. It resembled an enormous child’s toy… except for the pointed iron teeth.
“Blasphemy!” Gertrude hissed, taking an involuntary step backward.
“I don’t like this at all,” Myrl whispered to Roxy, who whimpered with raised hackles.
Immediately, the “person” in the box opened its eyes and said, in a blasting, monotone voice. “Do you wish to donate blood?”
As a group, they all shook their heads, NO! and quickly backed away. The pioneers raced for the wagon. The machine person stepped out of the crate and began following, slow and steady. In that same booming monotone voice the automaton asked for their age, their weight, their blood type, and if they were registered organ donors. The group lept aboard the wagon and the oxen pulled at once. The animals were spooked by the loud metal person who followed even and steadily, all the while asking them if they wished to donate blood.
Eventually, they outpaced the automaton and devised a plan. It was insanely risky, but at dusk, Myrl and Roxy bravely lured the mechanical man into a narrow canyon. Lailoken and Junior then crept out of their hiding spot and rolled a massive sandstone boulder from a deadly height. The boulder plummeted and landed with a thundering boom atop the automaton, kicking up a great cloud of rocky debris as the unsettling robot was pinned face-first to the canyon floor.
That night no one slept, for in the distance they could hear the automaton continuing to ask if they wanted to donate blood.
***
In addition to the incident with the blood robot, the Pioneers also battled a fire snake, survived quicksand, and lost the wagon and the oxen in a terrible landslide. Roxy ate some grass that made her sick and Junior twisted his ankle on the morning of the sixth day, forcing everyone to take shelter until he could walk again. There was also Gurtrude’s hideous death. Myrl couldn’t get the images out of her mind; a matter involving a frightening feathered reptile--much too gorey to repeat in the pages of this story.
And so, after months of grueling overland travel across the American terrain followed by a week of obstacles and challenges in a mysterious land, the surviving members of the party reached their final destination. Junior scratched his head and Lailoken mirrored his look of surprise and confusion. The destination point on the Golden Map was…a castle.
An authentic medieval fortress with towers, spires, and a drawbridge stood before them. It perched atop a hill in the dusk, flanked by palm trees and a low-hanging crescent moon.
The Mantid stepped out from behind a crumbling rock wall.
Myrl was about to pull her belt knife, but the tall creature quickly acknowledged her. It offered a telepathic “congratulations” of sorts--and then vanished. Neither Lailoken nor Juinor saw the Mantid, although her father sensed the abnormal vibrations from where Myrl said she beheld the creature.
As they got closer to the castle they saw the other pioneers-- just as exhausted as they were. Myrl watched them wearily driving their wagons up the steep hill through the main gates, beneath the formidable portcullis, and into the expansive inner courtyard. Myrl and her remaining party trudged forward and joined the many sunburned, smelly, and haggard travelers converging upon the castle. Although strangers at first, Myrl and her party soon learned they all shared a common thread: they had been heading West for the Gold Rush when they were taken and placed in this strange new land.
Once inside Myrl and the others inspected the castle and its grounds. They discovered the fortress to be long abandoned but weirdly the kitchens and dining hall were fully stocked with a mouthwatering assortment of cured meat, crisp vegetables, fresh fruit, roasted nuts, baked bread, pastries, and sweets. There was also an expansive wine cellar with barrels of ale and mead. While Lailoken and Junior wondered out loud about the castle’s vanished inhabitants, Myrl suspiciously eyed a soft cinnamon sugar muffin, before stuffing it into her mouth. As she swallowed the delicious muffin, she thought she saw the Mantid again peeking at her from the end of a hallway, but when she blinked no one was there.
There was so much food and drink it felt excessively creepy. Creepy or not, the one-hundred and ninety-eight travelers--Junior had quickly conducted a head count shortly after their arrival--began feasting, exchanging tales, and comparing stories while getting to know one another. In short, they had a celebration.
Late into the evening, a black triangular-shaped Sky Ship silently emerged from the clouds and hovered over the castle, its nonhuman occupants…observing. Most of the revelers were either asleep or too absorbed in the festivities to notice, but Myrl was still awake and alert. She was trying to get a possum to eat a bread crumb out of her hand when her eyes drifted toward the looming Sky Ship. Its sickly orange lights pulsed ominously. She dropped the bread crumb and clutched her belt knife. Her dog, Roxy, trembled.
***
Later, Royal Historians of the Golden Map Society would refer to Myrl Bel’s tale as one of the earliest histories of the land--the land that would eventually be named Southwestern Bellows. Her story offers valuable insights into the esoteric extraterrestrial origins of this world and remains the earliest chronicle supporting the human breakaway civilization theory.
Little was recorded about the rest of Myrl’s life, but on her deathbed, at the age of thirty-five (which was considered quite old back then) Myrl recalled the original abduction event in vivid detail. She wove a graphic tale of the Zeta Reticulan’s inhuman description and described being placed in a trance-like state, as she and her group were led away from the main wagon train like cattle. Myrl would go on to detail the hideous fear-based religio-magickal procedures she and her group endured. (See: “Darkness of the Bels: Year 1” for the shocking tale. ) Here we get our first terrifying account of the Zeta Reticulans: the extraterrestrials that haunt this land--creatures that make the Mantid, with which Myrl had contact, seem benign and grandfatherly.
Though Myrl’s life faded, her legacy continues. The original Golden Map, the artifact bestowed upon her by the Mantid, is now proudly exhibited in Castle Freedom Tooth, the capital of the Southwestern Bellows.
