The ground rocked, and the ice they stood on cracked. The arrogant overlords crouched on wobbly legs. Then, between the homicidal traitors and the two warriors, the ice exploded in splintering shards, like something ramming up from the bowels of Hell. Steam hissed, and cold water sprayed the dozen humans. From the hole that had just formed, a gigantic creature pulled itself out—a creature not natural to this earth. Something—an extraterrestrial horror, an ivory-colored bone monster—climbed from the ice pit.

—A War of a Billion Years

Whether fighting against the Jersey Devil, the Lakota demon Unktehila, or opposing an extraterrestrial plot to wipe out all terrestrial mammals, some Earthlings don't get the credit they deserve. Here are five exciting tales of science fiction and the supernatural.

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Excerpt from A War of a Billion Years And Other Stories © Copyright 2024 Frank Dunne

The Devil and the Three Sisters

“The Devil lives in these woods,” declared old Elemiah Wakefield from his rickety, lopsided porch, “but I don't suppose you college girls will take heed.” He steadied himself against a spindly, whitewashed post.

It’s a common rumor that old Elemiah was born in this misplaced, weed-entangled bungalow he likes to call home. He’s about as deep inside the Jersey Pine Barrens as a man can get, and it’s fair to say that he never had any reason to leave. No one really knows his story, but the Wakefield family must have been here since before they kept records. Now, it seems, hoary Elemiah is the last living, rust-covered relic of his horse-drawn clan. Whatever the truth, the Park Service takes the presence of this one crusty old coot as tolerable.

Strange as it sounds, maybe the census bureau doesn’t want to bother with him, but Elemiah has a small following of worshippers who stop by time and again to hear his stories—Mostly folklorists wanting to be entertained by his forest tales of ghosts, witches, and devils. Only one or two potential authors a year, but even so, it's company. Once this Piney is dead, the Barrens will have one less living library.

The college girls who stood in the middle of nowhere with Wakefield came from a hybrid type of paranormal society that’s still in operation. It includes both believers and skeptics and is based just outside the local college. The society has no affiliation with the school, but the visitors who talked with Elemiah were professors at that university. Who knows if they still are? Interest in the supernatural had a serious hold on their minds, but it didn’t change the fact that their diplomas claimed scientist status for each. And they were sisters. Not triplets, but they did look uncommonly alike, and as close as they came in appearance, that’s how far apart they seemed in disposition. The one thing that tied them together, aside from their head-turning beauty, was their avocation for the inexplicable.

About this time the year before, a party of deer hunters went missing in the Pines, and except for their expensive rifles and gear, rangers found not a trace of them. The rescuers searched high and low, but no one ever heard from those trophy seekers again. Just as if the ground opened up and swallowed them. Sinkholes existed as a possibility, as did alien abductions and falling into mini black holes, but no evidence for any of those unlikelihoods saw light. A jumbled assortment of boot impressions scuffed up the campsite, and there must have been chaos. The men scampered this way and that, almost as if they had been attacked from above, and ran in blind confusion…

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