Synopsis
Standalone Farm starts with a young couple, Mike and Callie Steffers becoming separated in the woods. The husband tracks his wife to a mysterious guesthouse, Standalone Farm, but he is in fact in a waking nightmare engineered by an evil man called Kurtz and his accomplice Marie Lee Jakob. This pair are convinced that communications with alien races can be achieved through gateways such as Stonehenge and Standalone Farm. They use Mike Steffers to acquire a fantastic invention that will make them the richest and most powerful people on the planet. Johnny Beams, a failed hack, investigates the affair but in
doing so encounters an alien spy called Syonultha who inadvertently infects Johnny with enhanced mental abilities.
A new company called E-Solve is formed by Kurtz with the help of the mysterious Alexi Demekin (the spy), that will serve as the vehicle for the great invention, E-Power, that will solve the earth’s energy problems. The company attains funding and prepares for global deployment using Kurtz’s Pyramid shopping centre as the prototype.
Meanwhile the Varyan race on planet Zertxy-1 prepares to invade earth and take its harvest of children from the planet they call Teran. It is they, the Varyans, who have allowed Kurtz to develop his great invention for their own purposes. A brilliant Varyan
diplomat called Chi-Re-Ylleon stands alone against the wishes of his race believing the invasion of earth is immoral. It is his political machinations, together with Johnny Beams unknowing involvement, that leads to a surprising conclusion to the story.
Chapter 1 - The Beginning (first 1300 words)
It had started with an argument.
It was the same argument that couples have had since cars were first invented. From that time, it was deemed gallant for the man to drive. Some years later women’s liberation rewarded the fair sex with the subordinate roles of both co-pilot and navigator. A matter of minutes after this appointment, the eternal argument was born.
The man drove with affected intensity, his knuckles shining white through skin stretched over clenched fists. His hands were set in the classic ten o’clock two o’clock position used exclusively by drivers who were either learners, in the throes of an argument, or
experiencing awful travel conditions.
Mike Steffer’s clenched teeth and general body tension reflected the bitter argument he was having with his wife Callie, and the wild storm that plagued their journey for the past hour.
“I bloody told you. It was bloody obvious that the sodding AA directions and this road did not coincide for over an hour but you just sat there quietly....like....like a dummy, hoping for a bloody miracle....what did you think was going to happen? Did you think there was going to be a big flashy sign looming out at us? This way Mrs. Steffers! Or did you think there would be a policeman standing at the side of the road with a Take the next right Callie , sign?...or were you looking for the Bates Motel sign?...well?”
Callie Steffers bore the sarcasm stoically. She sat straight, her lips alternately pursed or bearing a sour smile that spoke a thousand words, the preamble being, Wherever we stay tonight you are so not getting sex .
She had remained silent for several minutes, a world record her husband would have normally observed, but under the weight of his latest barrage, she finally responded.
“If you weren’t so intent on haring down every dirt track in Devon, I would have got us back on route. It’s pissing down with rain and it’s pitch black and all you have done is blame me. All you had to do was to pull over..…”
“What the hell are you talking about? You didn’t even open your mouth until we were completely stuffed! Then it was too late. All I did was try and reverse the route to get us back to where we had some sense of location..…”
“Oh, and how did the reversing work out, smartass? Well? You have bloody reversed us into a scene from a Hammer horror movie....”
“Well, with a bit of luck I will meet the bride of Frankenstein and she can navigate...…”
“Oh shut the fuck up Mike you dork....stop the bloody car and let’s find a road sign..... “
“Right you got it Lord Nelson .”
Mike hit the brakes, both feet to the floor executing what should have been a perfect emergency stop. The ABS kicked in, causing the car to judder to a halt. In good conditions the car would have been brought to rest in an orderly manner, but the conditions were anything but good. For a moment it looked as though the VW would swerve gently, but the rain was bouncing off the surface in
gallons. Thus a gentle skid turned into a languorous spin, the headlights bouncing off trees then the road, then back to trees.
Mike, an experienced but unexceptional driver, failed to control the skid, and the car described a full circle sliding left at the same time.
These near death experiences are generally played out in slow motion. Callie was unaware that she was screaming, but was acutely aware of a bank of trees approaching her with ponderous malice. The bark of the ancient oaks shone silver, reflecting the moonlight, and welcoming her approach. In her mind they had been waiting for this moment for hundreds of years. Soon she would be theirs, a kindred spirit, staring at the invasive road waiting patiently for a victim.
Callie turned her despairing gaze to her husband. She locked eyes with his, forgiving him. He returned the stare. For some reason she would not identify until some time later, her mind cast back to something that happened when she was twelve, the ancient scenes flashing through her brain in milliseconds.
She was staying at Amy Morse’s house for a sleepover, They were the best of friends. Amy was an only child and lived with her
divorced mother and no one else. They had stayed downstairs watching horror films until the early hours, but at four in the morning, they heard Amy’s mum at the lounge door. Strangely, Ms. Morse tapped on the closed lounge door but did not enter. Amy shushed Callie and they both giggled. The door handle turned, but Ms Morse still did not enter. The girls held their breath and a whisper
penetrated the wood.
“It’s time to go, Amy. It’s over.” The whisper trailed off and the girls gathered their blankets around them and sneaked back
upstairs, tip-toeing up the recently vacated wooden hill.
That next morning the girls woke late, a major surprise, as normally Ms. Morse would have got them up for breakfast. They watched more TV then hunger drove them to investigate, starting with the obvious, the master bedroom.
The post mortem revealed that Sara Morse had been dead for enough hours to ensure she predeceased the whisper at the door.
Callie, at the moment of her assumed death, did not think of marriage or the moment at which she believed her first child, as yet
unborn, to have been conceived. At that moment, she thought of the ghost of Amy Morse’s mother.
Mike, on the other hand, despite the meaningful exchange, was only thinking how it was all his wife’s fault. If she hadn’t been such a lousy navigator as were all women, they wouldn’t be in this position. He wasn’t concerned about crashing. Men tended to be blasé about such things, especially un-pregnant men. What he was concerned about was the inevitable damage to the car and how long a stony silence he would need to maintain after the impact in order to punish his errant better half. As far as the pregnancy was
concerned, he was blissfully unaware of it. Callie saved this news for their romantic first night in the idyllic old English Inn she had discovered, somewhere in a thousand mile radius of their current location.
The silver VW spun on, heading towards death or damage depending on whose viewpoint you shared.
Fortunately for the Steffers, it was the latter. The car had spun off the road and was indeed on track to engage with the bank of trees bordering the wood. Fortunately for them an unseen ditch intervened. Later, when matters got much worse, Mike would ask himself what a six-foot ditch was doing at the side of the road. The car, which was not actually spinning that fast, tipped into the ditch with a lurch and a dull whump just audible above the sound of the storm. Both passengers rocked forward in their seats. The belts easily
protecting them from the impact.
The car rocked backwards for a second then forwards, settling in the shallow mud. The unhappy couple were left semi suspended, as the car assumed a near vertical angle nose down in the ditch...
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