The Passage
Coyright by By Nancy Lieder in 1997 and 2009
Table of Contents
Introduction …………………………………………………
3
Scenes
Prolog ………………………………………………… 5
Theories ……………………………………………… 12
Signs
……………………………………………………
20
The Horror ……………………………………… 31
Stories ……………………………………………
39
Friend and Foe …………………………… 47
On the Move ……………………………………… 56
Harm’s Way ……………………………………… 72
Helping Hands ……………………………… 81
New Neighbors ……………………………… 94
2
-Introduction-
The Passage follows several groups as they experience a pole shift and are
increasingly introduced to friendly aliens. These themes and the cover-up over
the approaching danger are introduced early. Martha, as a child, and her
young son Billy are both shown to be contactees. The cover-up over the
approaching rogue planet that will cause the pole shift is encountered when
the public tries to use observatory telescopes.
Danny, a young journalist encounters the pole shift cover-up when he tries to
publish a theory held by a local East Coast professor. The story follows
Danny. Discouraged at being dismissed by his editor, Mr. Maya, he goes on a
camping trip to the West with his girl friend Daisy. Hitting it off with
another couple, Frank and Jane, up in the Rockies, they discuss professor
Isaac’s theories and the congruence of prophecy, folklore, and geographic
evidence.
A local rancher, Big Tom, finds his cattle restless and his wife Martha
drinking beer in the middle of the day when the earth starts moaning. The pole
shift hits, preceded by days of darkness, red dust, and a slowing rotation. A
tent city is erected. An old timer at the ranch, Red, keeps the family on an
even keel. Martha and Red feed the group possum and earthworms and Red cobbles
together a windmill from a lawnmower and car parts.
Various groups migrate to a local ranch, as the roads and communications are
disrupted. Danny and his friends are looking for a working phone and some gas
for their car. The local Mayor, Herman, along with a couple close to the ranch
folks, Len and Clara, are looking for any place not devastated. Netty, the
lone survivor at a resort, is being pursued by the Groggin brothers, who are
dealt with in vigilante style justice. Mark, the pilot of a downed small
plane, and his lover Brian are looking for rescue. The group shares stories.
Insanity due to the stress of the changes affect little Tammy and Brian. Young
Billy receives a gift from the Zetas to cure his sister. Mark takes Brian back
to the plane wreck to rig an air balloon, traveling under strong west winds to
New York City, viewing the devastation as they go.
The group gathering at the ranch soon encounter a rogue military unit, lead by
General Flood and his acquiescing assistant Sergeant Hammond. They must leave
the ranch for their own safety after Jane has been killed during a rape
attempt. The traveling band lives off the land as their supplies have run out.
The group find evidence of cannibalism.
3
The traveling group then encounter another survival group led by Ian,
established on a river bluff. There Frank meets a new love in Madge, a mute
cook. Red helps an old timer at the camp cobble together a wood gas generator
for the antique tractor.
The rogue military unit follows, as Colonel Cage and others assigned to quell
the ranch rebellion have broken orders. On the move again, the group encounter
an innovative houseboat city afloat in the river, using plastic bottles as
floatation devices. They arrive at a dome city under the protection of benign
visitors, the Zetas. The dome city is self sufficient, growing food indoors.
The city mayor, Jonah, is an obvious contactee and hybrid children live at the
dome city. After a battle in which the protection of the Zetas plays a part,
the residents of the dome city find they have some friendly new neighbors, not
entirely human.
Danny and Netty are taken on a tour to meet alien lifeforms. Billy is the tour
guide. They meet an intelligent octopus, a hominoid pair with thick plate
covered skin, an intelligent jellyfish in a living ball of water, and
intelligent manta rays living on a poisonous gaseous planet.
4
-Prolog-
Martha, as a little girl, is in the swamp near the ranch home where she is
being raised by her father as an only child. Martha is dressed in a short
sleeved T-shirt and blue jean coveralls with the name “Martha” stitched in
faded red lettering across the left side of her coverall bib. She is barefoot,
hair in pig-tails, an obvious tom-boy. She is munching half a sandwich as she
approaches a clearing at the edge of a pond. There is a large tree at the
edge, with another nearby laid out on the ground with the top branches
splashed into the pond. The roots of the fallen tree have pulled from the
ground, forming a disc of tangled roots as tall as a man, leaving a shallow
hole in the ground where the tree used to stand. Grass has grown around this
area, as sunlight can now get through.
Martha is listening to the thrumming of the frogs, a chorus, and has stopped
munching her sandwich in fascination, looking out over the pond in a type of
rapture. There is a splash to the side, a racoon at the waters edge, and
Martha forgets the frogs, turning her head sharply toward the sound with a
slight smile. She knows this racoon. She leans over putting her sandwich on
the grass and creeps back behind the huge roots of the fallen tree, which
easily hide her small frame which is half the size of the root base. The
racoon scuttles over to investigate the sandwich, then chitters at something
it sees descending from the sky. The area is lighted, soundlessly, for a
moment, while the racoon grabs the sandwich and runs off with it.
A sport size space ship, 25 feet in diameter, is descending rapidly into the