The Apocalypse Script by Samuel Fort Page A

then.”
    “ I can tell you the legend –
that’s all I’ve got.”
    “ Go for it.”
    “ Alright. Apparently they were
discovered in a place now called Tiwanaku, in the Bolivian Andes.
You’re familiar with the location, I assume.”
    “ Of course, ” replied Ben. “It’s
the location of those large stone structures that conspiracy
theorists believe were built by aliens. I once led a small team
there to inspect some inscriptions.”
    Lilian nodded. “Oh yes, Ridley
mentioned that to me. Anyway, the story goes that several hundred
years ago the region was ruled by a king called Pumuk.”
    “ How many hundreds?”
    The driver turned towards him.
“Ben, this is a legend, not an excerpt from a textbook. I have no
idea.”
    “ Sorry – go on,
please.”
    Lilian adjusted her rearview
mirror. “One day old King Pumuk was told that a strange man dressed
in odd yellow garments was requesting an audience with the king.
The king, curious, went to meet the newcomer, who was a pole of a
man with flesh stretched taught over his bones and large,
unblinking eyes.
    “ The newcomer
introduced himself as the
Sillum - ‘the Unseen.’ The Sillum said he
had come to Tiwanaku because his god had directed him to build a
gateway through which its minions could come into the world and
take possession of it. The alignment of the stars dictated that the
portal be built in Tiwanaku. The Sillum said that he would require
the king’s population to be enslaved for that purpose because the
design parameters were unforgiving, the schedule pressing, and
movement of megalithic stones a necessity.”
    “ I’m guessing the king wasn’t
receptive to the request.”
    “ Your guess is correct. King Pumuk
was outraged. How dare a stranger come to his kingdom demanding
that his people be enslaved to build a portal for a foreign god!
The king directed his guards to arrest the Sillum but as they moved
to obey, the stranger spoke a word and the guards turned against
their own king and slew him, instead.”
    “ What did the stranger
say?”
    “ One word.”
    “ What was it?”
    Lilian shrugged. “The legend
doesn’t tell us. But it says that he then spoke another word and
everyone within earshot of the Sillum fell under the stranger’s
spell. In due course the man had the entire population constructing
giant stone buildings, walls, and the gateway itself, upon which
the Sillum attached tablets with cryptic writings. He said the
tablets contained the history of his god and foreign lands and the
workings of the universe and that it was written in the language of
the heavens.”
    “ Wait a second…what did this
portal look like?”
    “ I think you can guess,
Ben.”
    “ The Gate of the Sun?”
    “ Bingo!”
    “ Ha! Perfect. When does the movie come out?”
    “ Not for a few hundred years,”
Lilian said mirthlessly, accelerating. Checking the speedometer Ben
saw they were traveling at ninety-five miles per hour.
    He said, “These are the tablets in Ridley’s
possession?”
    “ That’s right.”
    “ Given that civilization continued
unimpeded, I’m guessing the portal didn’t work as
advertised.”
    Lilian moved her head left and
right. “Not exactly. When it and the other buildings were finished,
the Sillum conducted a ceremony and begged his god to send armies
into this world to claim it in his name. The legend is that the god
answered the call and sent its vassals through the portal in the
tens of thousands. Hideous beasts that sent the population
fleeing.”
    “ And yet?”
    “ Yet almost
immediately after emerging from the portal, they began
to die. ”
The woman’s tone became humorously sinister. “All of them, with
horrific cries of alien pain and anger. Their corpses began to
putrefy, to stretch and bloat and burst into thousands of pieces.
Every inch of the ceremonial site was blanketed by a foot of purple
and pink slime that smelled worse than…” She stumbled, at a loss
for words.
    “ Rotten eggs?” suggested