"Who, Sullivan?" I interrupted in surprise. "Who'll come? Who is it that comes in the darkness?"
"The Creatures!" screamed Sullivan, his voice breaking into terror. "The White Creatures, Charlie!
They'll come! They always come!"
"The Creatures? Who are The Creatures? Do you mean Range Four Harry?" I responded in surprise.
"NO!" Sullivan continued, now screaming in terror. "NO! GET BACK FROM ME! GET BACK! YOU
CUT ME DOWN ON RANGE ONE! I WASN"T DOING ANYTHING TO YOU! YOU'RE NOT
HUMAN! YOU CAN'T BE SORRY!" Then he apparently began reliving some of the awful nights of
terror that he'd spent alone, out in the empty darkness of the desert ranges so many months ago. He could
be heard dropping the phone and screaming hysterically, "No! There's no such thing! NO ! There can't
be! -- Chapter #4
. . . . .
"Because when I was leaving, she ran up alongside the truck, looked me right in the eyes through the
open window, and shouted at me, 'Don't ever come back to this place or we'll kill you. Do you hear me?
We'll kill you! Do you hear me? Don't ever come back or we'll kill you!!'" -- Chapter #13
. . . . .
I opened the door and went in. Sitting there in a soft chair, in a darkened room, was a pleasant man,
probably in his early forties. He was neatly dressed, wearing a nice three piece business suit with a narrow
necktie. The bulge under his left arm pit betrayed the gun he was carrying in a shoulder holster. From the
size of the bulge, I concluded that the gun must be an unusually large caliber. The bulges in the pockets of
his suit jacket looked suspiciously like extra ammunition clips. "Unusual tools for a neurosurgeon", I
thought to myself. -- Chapter #16
. . . . .
Coming out of the pass, I could see the Mojave Wells base in the distance. It looked so beautiful and
peaceful as it lay exposed in the afternoon sunshine. --
Like Sullivan, I realized that whatever had been watching me from out in the sagebrush today would be
watching me from out in the sagebrush tomorrow - and the next day, and the next day. -- Chapter #7
. . . . .
-- he continued: "You know, if you're going to go out there alone every night like you do -- you're
going to have to face up to whatever is out there. You're never going to be able to hide from it, not with
all that baby white skin of yours. You're going to have to learn to stand your ground when it walks in on
you from out in the sagebrush. --
-- You know you got to be in a lot of trouble now that Base Commanding General has gone and learned
your name." Then Smokey bent over laughing gently, spit on the ground, and laughed some more. --
Chapter #7
. . . . .
While I watched, she remained standing there, completely at ease in the hot, bright sunshine. She
stood looking at me through the windows. I sat on the chair inside the lounge, watching her in
return. She obviously wanted me to see that she was out there. The chalk white aluminized
canvas jumpsuit that she wore, matched the chalk white color of her skin. It did not glint in the
bright sunshine. With her large bright blue intelligent looking eyes and her short blonde-white
hair, she appeared to be the very personification of a hot, bright, summertime desert afternoon.
She appeared to be a creature created entirely out of sunshine. -- Chapter #19
. . . . .
... Thank God you were here, Charlie! I'm hurt real bad, way down, deep inside . . . Chapter #15
. . . . .
... Believing now that I understood how men felt, men who were forced to fight desperate battles and face
the unknown alone. I grimly assessed my desperate situation. I decided that I had to get back to my
weather shack . . . at any price. -- Chapter #8
. . . . .
"You'll never know how bad it was." responded the stewardess quietly. "Our pilot had panicked. . . .
The pilot came on the intercom and told us that the hail and the turbulence had damaged the plane. He
said that it was impossible to go on, and that he was still going to have to crash out there in the cold
nighttime, rain soaked desert. All of the old people were praying and all of the little kids were crying. The
pilot had already started to turn back.
Then, I could hear the tower operator shouting at our pilot. He was shouting, ' -- Now what are you
going to do, ruin this man's Christmas just because you don't have the guts to follow his instructions --?
Keep heading northeast, man! Do like the weather man says! -- And if he's wrong, what do you care
where you die? -- Now get back on that northeast beacon!'" -- Chapter #14
. . . . .
The road was sunken, a little, and concealed by sagebrush on both sides. Keeping in the shadows on my
side of the road, it was a simple matter to see where I was going. I had fallen in love with the beauty of
the desert that evening. It seemed like I would destroy that beauty if I were to turn on my headlights.
Since I didn't need the headlights, I decided to leave them off for the entire drive. So it happened that, had
anyone been watching, they would have had no way of knowing that I was coming. They couldn't have
known that I was coming from so far, so quiet, so unseen, and, speeding up to 35 miles per hour, coming
up on them so fast.
-- Chapter #11