Cries From Another Dimension: Unleashed

One cool and foggy evening in the mountains above a small town in central California, just beyond the city of Topeg, two hikers, Kenny and Tony, make camp to end a long day of hiking. Following a successful hunt, the air is filled with the wonderful aroma of something good barbecuing over the fire.

As they sit back, talking, relaxing and enjoying the warmth of the flames, they suddenly hear terrified screams off in the distance. They are immediately uneasy about the horrific screams of agony they are hearing.

One of the hikers rushes to the ridge just above their camp to take a look below and see a quaint little town, off in the distance. The screams and the serene-looking atmosphere don't go together.

They exchange a glance with each other which says, “Maybe we can help those people.”

They quickly grab their hunting rifles, rushing off to help without even thinking about what to do with their meal over the fire. Even though they can see the town, it is still a fast jog for about a half mile to get to the little town.

The closer they get to the town the more morbid the screams. Just as they are about a fourth of mile a way, all of the screaming stops. It is now deathly quiet, which is even stranger than the sounds of all of the screaming itself.

Kenny and Tony immediately go into “red alert” mode and raise their guns into firing position, just in case they encounter something by surprise.

“Man, this is really weird.” said Kenny as they move stealthily out of the trees towards the main road into town.

“You got that right!” Tony nodded, wishing he was back up at the camp fire relaxing and minding his own business.

When the two men reach the city limits, there is no one in sight everywhere they look. They look in on several stores and shops only to find more of the same, nothing.

Kenny calls out to Tony after looking in on an antique shop.  “Tony, check this out!”

“What is it?” Tony responds, not really wanting to look around any more than he has to.

On the floor is what looks like several water stains in the shape of fallen bodies soaked into the wooden floor, but then they quickly disappear. Tony runs up.

“What is it? You find something!”

Kenny just stares at what he thought he just witnessed.

“Yo, Kenny, what is it, man?”

“I'm not sure. Something…it just….never mind. My eyes are playing tricks on me.”

The two men walk down the main street of the small town and see absolutely no one. The place seems deserted.

“I don't understand this,” said a confused Tony. “With all the screaming we heard up a camp, somebody should be glad to see us coming.”

“Yeah, this is creepy.”

As the two men talk, what looks like puddle of water in the shadows on the ground and moves towards them. They are completely unaware of its approach.

Back at the campsite in the stillness of the night, the campfire is now burning out as off in the distance, we now hear the bloodcurdling screams of Tony and Kenny.
In the barren street where Tony and Kenny previously stood, their bodies have been reduced to wet imprints on the pavement which slowly disappears.  What happened to their bodies? And what kind of creature could do this to the human body?

The next day, a car load of six teenagers drive into town, passing through. They rush into a nearby hotel. Bobby Ferguson, a college jock and his girlfriend cheerleader, Kelly, nerdy Cedric Porter and his bookworm girlfriend, Connie, and sarcastic Lincoln Hartford and his girlfriend, Linda, who also a born-again Christian, are clearly an unlikely bunch that would ever be hanging out in the same car. Yet here they are.  Bobby enters complaining.

“Lincoln, out of all the stops we've made, you have to pick a deserted town. That's like really brilliant. Hello, anybody home!”

“Oh ,yeah, like you really know where we are,” Cedric muttered.

“I wasn't talking to you, Cedric-boy.”

The kids enter the hotel nearby and notice it's a deserted as the town seems to be.
Again Bobby calls out, “Hello! Where the hell is everybody?”

“Actually, this place is kind of scary, in a weird way,” Cedric observes.

“You think? What do you want us to do, hold your hand?”  Bobby snaps back. “Man, how'd he get picked to join us on this trip? That's your boy, Lincoln.”

“No, not my boy, he was the only one left in class who had a car at the time we needed it.”

“Go figure!”

Bobby and Lincoln look into the various rooms for anyone they can find. The girls make their way over tot the restaurant/snack bar, only to find it barren as well.
The water is still running. Connie is really uneasy.

“Do we have to stay here? I don't like this place. It's creepy!”

“You saw the sign, girly. ‘Next stop 25 miles,’ unless you want to go in the bushes.

Don't be such a cry baby, just like your boyfriend.”

“Kelly, give it a break! Why do you have to be so rude to everybody around you?

You and Bobby were definitely cut from the same cloth.”

“Well excuse me, Miss Linda. Just because your daddy is a policeman doesn't mean you're Miss Perfect and can tell everybody what to do?”

“You know what?  You need to back up ‘cause I don’t need you in my face today.”

Biting her lip, Linda gets up and walks outside to get a break from Shelly. Shelly gives her the evil eye for confronting her.

In another part of the hotel, Bobby and Lincoln are deciding what to do.
“Lincoln, this is dope, man. Ain't nobody here, so maybe we can crash here overnight for free.”

“Bobby, dude, ain't you even curious as to what happened to everybody?”

“Sure I'm curious! But I also believe that you shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth. Tell everybody to get their stuff!”

“Okay!” Lincoln agreed reluctantly.

A loud sound of glass crashing to the floor in the restroom startles everyone in the room except Linda who is outside. They all race to the restroom door.  A panicked Connie calls out!

“Cedric…..Cedric! Are you okay? Cedric! Do something, he's not answering!”

They suddenly hear Cedric let out a blood curdling scream. Bobby quickly steps back, gets a running start and busts the door open. The others follow closely behind and are stopped in their tracks by what they see next.

Lying on the floor is Cedric covered in some kind of clear waxy fluid which begins to light up. The light gets so bright that it hurts their eyes. When the light decreases, Cedric's body is gone. The only thing that remains is a water-like substance on the floor, which quickly moves towards the group at the door and overtakes them before they can react. Soon all of them are covered in the same clear waxy substance, screaming for their lives.

Their screaming brings Linda inside only to find everyone else screaming and calling out to her as the substance glows brighter and brighter. Without hesitation, Linda bolts out of the door, jumps in their car and speeds off hysterically, while having no idea what she just witnessed.

Back in the restroom doorway, once again, all we see is a large wet stain in the floor which slowly fades away.

Meanwhile, Linda speeds down the freeway crying hysterically and out of her mind trying to comprehend what just happened. The more she thinks about it, the more tears flow from her eyes. She dials her cell phone repeatedly but her battery is too low to make connection. That makes her even crazier.

Linda drives throughout the night driven by fear, wondering if what happened to her friends is going to happen to her. She finally reaches her hometown and drives straight to her dad's workplace, the sheriff's office.

The next day, the formerly quaint city of town is busy with emergency vehicles and news vans covering the disappearance of everyone who lives in there. Investigators and agents scour the town and the surrounding area feverishly. Just before downgrading the investigation, a gruesome discovery is made.  By observing the town that evening, under the familiar black light used by the forensic team, bodies of the entire population are discovered everywhere.  The shape of every body is trimmed by a luminous powdery-like substance not seen by the naked eye.  This baffles authorities even more as to what happened. A state of emergency is declared immediately, but authorities have no idea what they are looking for.

That evening the general in charge of the recovery operations receives a call from home base reporting that satellite imagery reports the heat signature of something very large moving underground just beyond the town’s outer border that didn't show up earlier in the day. Because of its enormous mass, the entity is moving at a rather slow but at a steady pace. At its current speed it will be about a days distance from the larger populated city of Topeg in central California. The main question is, what is it? What does it have to do with the deaths of the people in this small town? And if so, how can it be stopped?

After studying the luminous substance in the soil samples and floor samples in every building in town, one chemical stands out among all the rest. There is an unknown chemical not only in the luminous substance but also within the very walls of every building in the small town, in the soil and in the water.  It was as if for some period of time every molecule of everything in the town was made up of this substance.

Traces of the unknown chemical were also found between the town and the location of the unknown underground entity. There is an uneasy feeling among everyone at base camp who now know that it may fall on them to stop this “whatever it is.”

The troops are called in with heavy artillery just in case they need it. The depth of the entity as it moves through the earth is about 200 feet but because its consistency is liquid, it moves through the earth like a knife through butter - without vibrations or sound waves.

In the day hours, the entity can only be tracked by its heat signature picked up by satellite, which then communicates to the ground crew.

At sunset, the first wave of armed forces on the ground arrives, closely tracking the entity as guided by satellite images. The darker it gets the brighter the heat signature gets.

Without warning, the image of the entity increases in size and intensity and quickly expands towards the armed forces vehicles. The news is relayed to the ground base but before they can warn the perimeter vehicles to be on the alert, the entity has expanded underground to an enormous size. None of the soldiers are aware of what is under them as that familiar water like substance soaks upward from the ground and attaches to everything and everyone it touches.

Once attached, it begins to glow under infra-red vision and again the screaming begins. Soldiers fire into the ground at an enemy they can't comprehend while the glowing “goo” has now covered all the tanks and seeps through the cold steal faster than water through a paper towel. Inside the tanks, the soldiers try to escape their fate as they jump out, screaming as well, covered by the glowing, wet “goo.”

Back at home base, the base commander is watching the huge glowing satellite image intensify in brilliance while hearing the helpless screams of his men over the radio.

The commander calls for an immediate air strike, which is on standby nearby, and six F-16s, fully armed, speed to the rescue at Mach speed. As they approach they have to put on their infra-red controls as the entity cannot be seen as anything but a clear liquid in the day time and completely impossible to see with the naked eye at night.

The first jet unloads its heat seeking rockets which strike the huge entity dead center and makes the heat of the entity increase even more. Just as the other five jets drop to a low altitude to unload the rockets, the entity shrinks to what looks like a small diameter on the ground while, at the same time, suddenly stretching vertically hundreds of feet upward to an altitude forcing the jets to fly through it. It happens so quickly that the jets don't have time to react considering the speed at which they approached the entity.

Just as it happened with the tanks, as the jets flew through the glowing fluid, it clings to each of the five jets causing them to instantly malfunction and crash to the ground. Observing all this, the sixth jet reports in and returns to base. If ever there was a question as to whether or not this entity is intelligence, all of their questions are now answered as this was a direct act of self-defense when it directly attacked the fighters.

Authorities are still baffled. Something has to be done to stop this creature before it reaches the heavily populated city of Topeg several hours away.  Since the creature moves underground mostly at night, much work must be done during the day hours in order to prepare for the next night's confrontation.

Throughout the night, over the next several hours, a major brainstorming session is held in attempt to come up with as many ideas as to how to stop this creature or change its course, by any means necessary. Hundreds of thousands could die if it reached the city ahead directly in its path. In the meeting are generals, explosive experts, scientists, environmental specialists and anyone else whose expertise might lend a helping hand in this crisis.

After examining the data, satellite images and analyzing the sequence of events over the past few days, it is discovered that the creature is about two hundred feet underground as it advances. The number of extending arms of energy flows to the surface seems to change according to how it is being attacked. At this point, there is no telling how many arms of energy streams can form during a single attack. Also, the creature seems to be able to mask its heat signature during the daylight hours by matching the air temperature. This makes it extremely hard to track during the day. This also means that in order to fight it, it must be attacked at night when it is the most visible with infra-red vision but also the most dangerous.

A plan was finally devised which would hopefully, at least, change the creature's course if nothing else. By tracking the creature's path over the last few days, its speed has remained consistent and it seems to be drawn to populated areas like a metal to a magnet. The plan is to get a day ahead of the creature and set up a line of defense by planting a string of explosive charges 250 feet under the surface and hope it destroys the liquid mass of destruction.

Immediately, the next morning the plan was set in motion. About ten miles outside the city and 50 miles ahead of the creature, heavily equipped tractors and rigs begin digging to the required depth of 250ft. At the creature's current rate of speed, the explosives had to be set within 10 hours, just before sunset, so as to not alert the creature on its approach.

After working feverishly throughout the day, the timeline is met. By sunset, a line of 50 powerful explosives are successfully planted across the creature's path in the formation of a long rectangular formation. The hope is that the creature, if it keeps its predicted straight course, will pass over all 50 explosives and get the full force of the blast.

The stage is set. This is the final stand. Either the creature will be blown to bits or hundreds of thousands will die.

The beauty of sunset is tainted by the thought of what lies ahead. As the satellite images are checked, they see that the creature is only a mile away. The beautiful orange sky quickly disappears into the darkness of the night. All of the infra-red goggles and equipment is turned on and a glowing halo hovering above the creature is seen approaching.

Tension fills the air as the creature gets closer and closer. As the halo gets brighter and brighter, all of the explosives are activated and ready to be triggered.
The creature begins to rise towards ground level. The closer it comes to ground level, the brighter it appears on infra-red.

The general on site calls in several more fighters armed with smart bombs this time. They are instructed to fire on the creature after all of the ground explosives are set off. The goal is to hit the creature from every angle with everything they've got. Surely it won't be able to survive this attack.

The creature is almost at ground level, completely covering the buried explosives blast design. Tension fills the air as the on-scene general gives the signal to “let it rip”. As his orders are carried out, the general turns his back to his soldiers in order to hide the fact that he is praying this will work.

The bombs are detonated simultaneously and explosion is humongous, with flames shooting high into the air like a Napalm bomb blast. Seconds later, several fighters unload their bombs at the scene and zoom off. For several seconds the night sky is lit up light daylight.

Home base personnel quickly check the satellite images and see a frightening sight. The creature has now broken into what seems like about thousand parts all streaking towards the city. The armed forces have no back up plan or the time to devise one. All they have time to do is sound the emergency alert system and make frequent announcement over the airwaves telling everyone to stay inside until the danger has passed.

Those directions end up being some of the worse directions that could be given. Because the creature’s main makeup is liquid, it is drawn to the city's water supply.
Home base watches helplessly as each of the thousands of infra-red specks disappear into the bright lights of the city.

Throughout the night, in what seemed like an eternity, the worse case scenario came to pass. Hundreds of thousands died as each of the various parts of what remained of the creature entered every dwelling and business that had access to water. People in the street were not safe either. People met their demise in the streets as well. As in the small town, the creature also hid in water puddles and water fountains.

Over the next day, authorities noticed that the heat signatures were nowhere to be found. Nothing was seen leaving the city the next night nor were there report of any more mysterious deaths. What they did notice was that all of the water had a strange textured brown material floating in it. Calls about the strange water flooded the emergency switchboards.

Finally when the water was tested, the strange-textured brown substance was made up of the same elements found in the luminous substance just outside the small town, when the creature was first discovered.

What happened? Where did the creature go? Did it die? If so, what could kill such a powerful creature after all of the artillery fired by the armed forces failed? How was the small town different from the larger city Topeg?

After examining the differences closely, the pollution index in the small town was very low while the pollution index in La Topeg was off the scale due to all the factories in the area.

In the end, it was discovered that the deadly chemicals in the polluted water is what killed the creature. The massive explosion had broken the liquid monstrosity into thousands of pieces. All of those pieces were acting as individual creatures trying to survive.  They were not able to reconnect and once again become the unbeatable creature that created such havoc over the past several days.

Mankind's destructive ways had done something positive for once and saved the world from a creature whose main course would have been the entire human race.

For the next several weeks, the residue in the soil, left by the creature, was analyzed over and over trying to discover the origin of the creature. It all led back to the town where it all started.

The trail of residue decreased in width from a few hundred feet wide down to only a few inches wide, leading to an old pipe left over from an abandoned oilrig.

The shaft next to the old pipe had been completely sealed. But apparently, due to some seismic activity recently, the seal had been cracked, exposing the pipe. The depth of the antiquated shaft was estimated to be several thousands feet deep. And it was quite clear from the trail of residue that the creature came from this shaft.
In the hopes of keeping anything else from coming to the surface from the depths below, a few sticks of dynamite were dropped into the shaft through the old pipe. The resulting explosion caused what remained of the shaft to collapse on itself.

The small town became a ghost town from that day forth. Stories of what happened became more frightening than what did happen. Even still, the truth was enough.

The city of Topeg suffered a major loss of life and was never the same as well. Thousands moved away with no thoughts of returning.

To this day, no one knows what the creature was or where it came from exactly. Only that one summer night, just beyond the city of Topeg, hell was unleashed on earth.