The Parachute

September 1980, Rendlesham Forest

The quiet of the forest was disturbed by the passage of a group of boys laughing and yelling at each other as they rode their bikes under the trees. It was the last weekend before the start of the new term, and, thankfully, it was a warm day instead of rainy. For Andy, it actually felt like real summer for once. He didn't mind being in England, really, but he missed the Summers back in Chicago, even if it was super humid there.

His Dad got transferred to the base here about a year ago to do some Air Force thing, and suddenly they were packing the house and selling all the furniture. Now he was going to school in a different country and having to wear a uniform. They called chips 'crisps' and cookies 'biscuits,' and there wasn't any peanut butter anywhere. He did have a fondness for scones and clotted cream, though. Even though Andy had been sad to leave his friends in the States, he thought being in England was a new adventure, and it didn't take him long to find other military brats to hang out with.

Today, for one last hurrah before the drudgery of school, they decided to make a day of it with a trip into the forest near the base. Ian and Peter both took archery lessons, so they brought their bows and arrows, while Kevin, Nile, and Colin were on snack duty. The three of them raided the local corner store for snacks and drinks before they left. Andy brought walkie-talkies his Dad had brought him for them to try, and, because he was a Boy Scout, he had the map and compass in case they got lost.

Thankfully, the woods were cooler than the road, since the mid-morning sun wasn't beating down on them. Eventually, they hopped off the bikes to walk them between the trees, since the trees had gotten closer together. After a hour of walking, they stumbled onto a clearing. It was big enough that it would take a few minutes to get to the other side of it, but it also felt far away from the rest of the world, and the boys agreed it would do nicely.

After a lunch of crisps and soda, Ian and Peter brought out the bows to teach the others. Andy tried it first.

"Thought you'd be good at this, Yankee! You're a Boy Scout after all!" teased Ian.

He shrugged. "Yeah, well, I wasn't in long enough to get to the archery stuff! Had to come to your dreary country before we go to it!"

The others laughed. Peter was attempting to teach Nile to shoot, but every time Nile tried, the arrow went off in all directions except the direction where Nile was aiming.

Peter shook his head. "Come on, mate! How can you be this bad at it?"

"I don't know," Nile said with a shrug. "Not really keen on weapons, anyway. I'd rather punch someone or climb up a tree."

"Well, why don't you put your walking skills to use and find all my arrows!" Peter ordered.

"Fine, fine! Don't eat all the biscuits while I'm gone, though!" Nile replied, and wandered off to the other side of the field. Kevin handed Peter another drink, and they all sat and talked about random things while they waited for Nile to come back.

Several minutes later, Nile shouted, "Guys! I found something! Come look at this!"

The others ran over to where Nile was, just inside the tree line. At his feet was a large pile of silvery... something. As Andy got closer, he realized it was fabric.

Ian examined it. "What is it?" he asked.

"It looks like a pile of fabric," Nile said with a shrug. "But have you ever seen any fabric that looks like that?"

"You think it's something from the base?" Colin asked.

"Dunno," Andy replied. He squatted down and touched it, and the fabric felt familiar. Thin, but well stitched together. "Hey, this might be a parachute!"

Ian touched the fabric, too. "How do you know?"

"My Dad showed me one once, since he had to fly some paratroopers somewhere, and they let families come and learn about what paratroopers do. Also, when I was in kindergarten... uh, infant school... they had this rainbow colored parachute that we'd play with in gym class. It feels a lot like this fabric!" Andy grinned mischievously. "Let's open it up and see!"

Colin paled a little. "But, if it's from the base, wouldn't we get into trouble?"

Kevin laughed. "They're the idiots who left it out here! Not our fault if we get curious about it!"

"Besides," Andy added, "we can always bring it back to my house when we're done and give it to my Dad. He'll know who it belongs to."

They all agreed and carried it to the center of the clearing. It was strangely light, considering the folded cloth was about six inches thick and about three feet wide on each side of the triangle that it was folded into. It only took two of them to carry it. Andy vaguely remembered that a regular parachute was a bit heavier, but he wasn't completely sure.

They found the edges of the fabric and unfolded it. "I knew it!" Andy exclaimed, as it did, indeed, open into a large circle with small hole in the center. The only real difference between this and the other parachutes he'd seen was that the fabric was a silvery color that showed rainbow colors when it moved. "It really is a parachute!"

"This has to be some special air force thing! Look at that fabric!" Peter said.

"Maybe. It's really cool, though!" Andy agreed.

They watched it sparkle and shift colors in the sun for a bit, then Ian asked, "So, what do we do now?"

Andy grinned. "I know! Let's do the parachute bubble!"

They all looked confused. "What's that?" Peter asked.

"We did it in kindergarten," he explained. "We all stand around the parachute, holding it with one hand, facing the same direction. Then we lift it up, turn under it, pull it behind us and sit on the edge. It makes a bubble for a little while, then it falls and you have to get out of it."

"Why would we want to do that? Besides, it's weird. The parachute, that is. It doesn't feel right." Colin swallowed, giving the parachute a dubious look.

"Are you chicken, Colin?" Ian jeered. The others started making chicken noises.

"No!" Colin sputtered.

Andy grinned. "Ok, let's do it!" They got into position, with Andy giving the instructions again. Andy took his spot, and said, "On three! One... two... three!" The boys lifted the parachute up above their heads. "Right, now get under and pull it under your butt!"

The boys did as instructed, flopping down onto the grass, sitting on the strange cloth. The parachute billowed upwards and sparkled brightly, brighter than it had been just seconds before. The boys laughed under the bubble of fabric. "Ok, Andy, I gotta admit, this is kinda cool," Kevin said.

"Right?" said Ian. "I feel like a little kid!"

Andy laughed. "Me too! This parachute is much cooler than the rainbow one we used in kindergarten!"

"Uh, guys, are parachutes supposed to do that?" Colin said, pointing to the hole in the center.

The others looked up. There were sparks around the hole in the center, with small arcs of electricity weaving itself over the hole. "No," Andy replied. "That's definitely not normal! Get out!" Andy tried to grab the edge of the parachute again to lift it, but it wouldn't move. "What the...?"

"I can't lift the fabric!" Kevin yelled, as the crackling from the top of the parachute got louder.

"I can't either!" yelled Peter.

"I knew this was bad!" said Colin.

"Not helping, Colin!" Nile scolded.

"It's stiff, now! What the hell?" Kevin shouted over the noise. Andy touched the parachute, and it was true-- it had turned into a wall. The ground was still the grass of the clearing, but it was as if the parachute had become embedded into the ground. The sparks traveled down the walls of the fabric, and all of the boys moved away from the walls to huddle together in the center. The parachute stayed up, not billowing like a parachute should, and then the hold closed up.

The boys huddled together. "What's going on?" Peter asked. No one had an answer. The crackling noises got even louder, and the walls of the parachute, or whatever it was, sparkled brighter and brighter until Andy had to squeeze his eyes shut.

As suddenly as the light brightened, it stopped. The quiet was almost deafening, and all Andy could hear was his and the other's breathing. Andy opened his eyes, blinking, as his eyes adjusted. The sparks faded away, and after a minute, the parachute billowed, returning to being fabric again, falling on top of them.

The boys scrambled to get out the parachute, and Andy realized that this time, it wasn't fun. Once they all disentangled themselves, Colin whispered, "Where are we?"

"Where's all our bikes and stuff?" Nile asked.

Andy turned away from the parachute and looked around. He gaped at what he saw. The forest was gone, replaced by a flat plane of grass. The grass outside of the circle where they had sat in the parachute was brighter and sparkled, more so than any of them had ever seen on Earth. Andy thought it was even brighter than the grass he'd seen in Ireland when they went on holiday a couple months ago.

"Guys," Nile said quietly, pointing, "look up."

Andy looked up. The sky was a lavender color, almost like twilight, but there was a washed out sun over head, as if it was noon. The clouds, though, were orange-tinted and swirled around like milk in tea. He turned around and he could see three small moons rising over the horizon. "There's three moons!"

"What?" Ian said, turning. The others did the same, all staring in shock and wonder at the strange sky.

They all jumped when, suddenly, there was a crackling noise at their feet and Colin screamed, "No! No no no!"

They all turned around to see that the parachute was disintegrating into sparkling dust. They all looked at each other.

"Shit," Andy said.