The Keepers
He stood helpless as the gargantuan figures rose slowly from the churning waves. Their expressions were identical; implacable, and imbued with a promise of unimaginable power. The sound when it came was overwhelming, shattering his eardrums and creating a vibration that separated his bones from their joints. He watched in horror as his skin sloughed off of his body, collecting in a puddle around what was left of his legs. And still they came.
The resonance of that hideous tone destroyed everything and everyone in its path, clearing an ever growing swath of death and destruction before their terrible advance. The evidence of Man's existence was swallowed in a vengeful stroke of supreme strength, punishing those who would tamper with the balance of nature that had been nourished over eons. Arrogance was rewarded with extinction as the Moai hovered above a ruined land, cleansed at last of the plague of mankind.
"No!"
Jason awoke from the nightmare, sweat pouring freely from his body. His breath hitched painfully from tortured lungs as he reached over to the nightstand to remove a cigarette from the pack. It was getting worse, he thought, as he lit the object of his obsession and felt the familiar burn fill his chest.
Yeoman Jason Freeburg looked around at the meager furnishings of his apartment and felt the relief of familiar surroundings. He supposed that his dreams were caused by a sense of guilt for what he was involved in, but it wasn't like he had much of a choice. The Navy tended to frown on suggestions that ran contrary to their mission. If he had learned anything since enlisting, it was that the military was definitely not the place to go against the grain.
But what twisted part of his psyche had come up with Moai as a threat to humanity? Until he started having the dreams he hadn't even known the names for those ancient enigmatic statues that were found on Easter Island, or Rapa Nui as it was rightfully named. A small amount of research had helped to inform him of the mystery surrounding those ancient monoliths. He chuckled softly to himself at the notion of something as innocuous as a statue holding such awesome power. It was like something out of a B horror movie.
"I'm really going to have to lay off the beer before bedtime" he mumbled through a whiskery smile. "Or maybe I could have Godzilla take the place of those creepy stone carvings. Raunch the rockets!"
Fearing the wrath of his chief more than that of an oversized marine iguana, Jason flew through the apartment making himself presentable for duty. He then drove the narrow streets toward the base, attempting to rid himself of the memories of his recurring nightmare.
After checking in with the duty officer, Jason pressed his thumb against a device which verified his identity at the entrance to the monitoring station. When he entered the soundproofed room he was greeted by Yeoman Gregory Stackhouse, who he was scheduled to relieve.
"It's almost midnight Freeburg. I was afraid you weren't gonna make it. I've got a three day pass and I think I'll spend two days of that just trying to catch up on my sleep."
Jason could see the dark circles under the eyes of the man he was replacing, and wondered if insomnia was a consequence of this job.
"You having trouble getting to sleep Stackhouse?"
"Nah, just getting back to sleep. I've been havin' some pretty weird dreams lately, but nothing that a little hair of the dog won't cure."
Jason just grunted and took his seat at the console, barely noticing as Stackhouse shrugged on his jacket and exited the room. The Navy had been involved for almost a year now in a program of monitoring submarine movement through the use of extremely high decibel low frequency transmitters throughout several strategic locations in the Pacific. The information was relayed back to this base, among others, and analyzed closely for national security purposes.
From the beginning there had been heated warnings from environmentalists who claimed that sea life, including whales and dolphins would be adversely affected by these signals, and that low frequencies of such a tremendous volume could permanently damage a variety of aquatic life. They warned of the possible voluntary beaching of marine mammals that relied on their own natural sonar to navigate and communicate with each other.
It was eventually determined by the United States Supreme Court that national security interests took precedence over the unproven theories of a few nervous scientists.
Jason scanned the readouts of the instruments arrayed in front of him and slipped on the headphones which were used by attending technicians to listen in to the sounds echoing back from the depths. The headphones he wore contained a filter which would eliminate the low frequency blast which came at regular intervals. He had spent many nights such as this one marveling at the heartrending beauty of humpback whales as they called in their plaintive voices throughout the watery expanse.
It started as a soft pulsing hum, which built in intensity to an overpowering reverberation. Jason's reactions weren't quite fast enough to allow him to escape the fate that was awaiting him. His last thought before his head exploded in a mist of bone and tissue was that the whales were strangely silent tonight.
They emerged from the depths, singing a song that had not been heard for hundreds of thousands of years. They came from where life began, sent by those who were much older and wiser. They sang their song for all humanity, sparing none.
The humans had held such promise, but ended up being a bitter disappointment. Sadly, it had always been so, and once again it had become necessary to proceed in another direction. It was fortunate that The Keepers were a patient lot. Perhaps their newest experiment would be resourceful enough to recognize a warning when they were given one.