AMAGANSETT BEACH

Known for their wild imaginations, triplets Carter, Patrick and Lisa couldn’t get anyone in their dad’s restaurant to believe they saw a UFO on the beach. No matter how hard they tried, everyone just laughed it off as a prank. The fifteen-year-old siblings and their parents lived in a beach house just behind the restaurant, a small family-run business in Amagansett. Their dad had finally been granted his liquor license and all their friends were reveling in the good news and celebrating the festivities. Enjoying the evening and feeling slightly inebriated, everyone dismissed the tall tale of UFOs.

It all began an hour earlier. The teens had been on the beach occupied with their new video game, Robbery Bob. The sky that night was an ominous pitch-black, devoid of any stars or even the sliver of a moon. Their devices gleamed like little beacons in their hands as they sat in a tight circle on the sand.

Lisa finally won her first game against the boys and whooped with glee; her brothers fell backward, groaning in the mock disbelief of defeat. Looking up at Lisa blissfully doing her victory dance, Carter noticed an amorphous light high in the sky. Pointing it out to his brother and sister, they joked about it being a UFO. They held their games up to their faces, the green light from the screens making their features look like extraterrestrials. They wrote off the far away object in the sky as just a plane but there was something unusual and a bit unnerving about the craft. It didn’t move in a forward direction as an airplane would; instead it gradually descended toward the water while slowing approaching the shore. The closer it came to the beach the more it took on the appearance of a giant jellyfish.

The dim lights of the missile began getting brighter until they were so intense the kids had to shield their eyes. It then started vibrating noisily and emitting shrill sounds. Covering their ears, the siblings sought shelter under a nearby dock. Realizing Lisa was not with them, Patrick and Carter looked back and saw her still on the beach, arms outstretched and staring straight at the ever-increasing light. They called out her name and yelled for her to come to them but their cries couldn’t be heard above the piercing noises of the craft. Lisa stood in a trance, unable or unwilling to move as a shimmering halo surrounded her entire body. The mysterious craft hovered over her, long-reaching prongs crackling and sparking like electric tentacles. Abruptly the noises stopped and the lights dimmed; the missile spun around and shot off like a rocket. In an instant it was gone, swallowed up by the blackness of the night.

Lisa fell to her knees, dazed but seemingly unharmed. The boys raced to their sister, grabbed her arms and ran as fast as they could to their dad’s restaurant. They animatedly retold the story and were rewarded with amused and disbelieving faces. Frustrated and agitated, they gave up trying to convince their parent’s friends and went home, retreating to their rooms. The next few days were awkward and many weeks passed before any of them mentioned that night on the beach.

One morning months later Carter awoke around 4:00 in a cold sweat. Momentarily disoriented, he switched on the lamp beside his bed and saw Patrick standing at their bedroom window looking out into the predawn sky. Carter asked his brother what he was doing and Patrick turned to him, a troubled look on his face. Haltingly, he explained a strange dream that had disturbed his sleep. There were little pointy-headed men standing at the foot of his bed chanting “We are the partisans. You are needed, Patrick. Come with us”. The little men took Patrick into a large room with gigantic gears crashing and grinding against each other. They walked to a metallic cerulean-colored door and entered an area with several different chambers. Patrick was led to a small room where he was instructed to sit on a large cushion in the middle of the room. The lights were turned off and the little men left the room, leaving Patrick alone in the darkness. He tried standing but found he was unable to get up; the cushion had a strong hold over him. At that point the dream ended and Patrick woke up. Carter sat on the edge of his bed staring at his brother in stunned silence, then whispered “That’s impossible! I just had the exact same dream!”

Thoughts of that night on the beach came flooding back to the boys; could this dream have anything to do with that night? They knew they had to tell Lisa about their visions. Shaken, Lisa reluctantly admitted to also having a very similar dream. She said that when the little men led her to the metallic door, they entered a crystal chamber; rows of transparent silvery pods neatly filled the room. Each pod contained a young woman much like herself asleep on her back, arms crossed over her chest. The last thing she remembered was being led to an empty pod and reclining on the bed as the crystal lid was lowered and locked in place. The siblings sat quietly for a long while trying to absorb all they had shared.

As time went by the dreams became less frequent and eventually stopped but the next several years brought much unhappiness to the family. The triplet’s parents contracted a novel virus and died withing weeks of each other. Patrick, Carter and Lisa took over operation of the failing restaurant until Lisa became ill and could no longer work. She started getting unbearable pains in her stomach and her brothers brought her to the hospital. After doing a scan, doctors discovered Lisa had a sizeable tumor and immediately prepped her for emergency surgery. Patrick and Carter were informed of the development and waited anxiously for news.

When the doctors opened Lisa up they were shocked to discover the tumor was actually a translucent gelatinous sac delicately inscribed in beautiful calligraphy with the words ”The Partisans”. Peering through the diaphanous membrane of the sac, the doctors were aghast to see it was full of miniature people with pointy heads. They carefully removed the sac in one piece, placing it in a receptacle on a cart next to the operating table. Once the sac was out, another shocking discovery was made: Lisa’s uterus had be removed, the surgical technique highly advanced and unfamiliar to any of the doctors. Bewildered, the surgeons began to complete the operation when Lisa’s blood pressure suddenly plummeted; she crashed and died on the table. When the doctors examined the sac, it was empty. The tiny pointy-headed people had vanished into thin air.

Patrick and Carter were devastated by the news of Lisa’s death; they were horrified hearing about the sac full of little people. Of course, the doctors had no explanation and the brothers made no mention of that night years ago on Amagansett Beach. On the way home from the hospital, Patrick asked Carter if his dream about that night had returned. Carter admitted that it began again shortly before the novel virus. Patrick nodded in agreement; his dream had also returned.

“Do you know what it all means?” Carter asked.

Patrick drove the car to the side of the road and turned off the engine. He thought for a moment then spoke very softly. “Yeah, I think I do. I believe Lisa was impregnated that night on the beach. The Partisans used you and me to fertilize the eggs of the women in Lisa’s dream, including Lisa. The Partisans likely caused the virus, ridding the world of countless older people. We had no idea we were creating a whole new life-form, the beginning of a new generation.”

Carter ran his fingers through his hair, pondering his brother’s words. “As incredible and far-fetched as it sounds, I think you’re right. How many others do you think this happened to?” he inquired.

“Who knows? Hundreds? Thousands?” Patrick declared. “One thing I’m sure of: the Partisans didn’t simply vanish; they are repopulating the universe. And this, brother, is far from over.”

NAR © 2020