The Man From Tomorrow

On a summer afternoon on the outskirts of Winslow, Arizona, seven men and women clothed in white appear on the horizon. They claim to be visitors from the future.

They ask the small town of Sun Dagger Springs to keep them a secret, while they build something in the desert. But can they really be trusted?

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Read the Prologue:

It was a broiling summer afternoon in Sun Dagger Springs, a tiny subdivision fifteen miles west of Winslow, Arizona. The wind is always blowing in that part of the world; the blood-red earth is always crying for rain.

I'd just moved in that Monday. The Chandlers were throwing a welcoming party for me in their backyard, and the whole neighborhood was there – all twelve of us. I knew something was wrong when Chuck Chandler dropped a hot dog into the grill. His eyes were fixed on the desert beyond his sun-bleached fence.

Seven figures were dressed in blinding white, walking abreast of one another over a hill in the desert. All of them bald, tall, and copper-skinned.

Mrs. Hernandez grabbed her children and ran into the house. Chuck reached for the buck knife he kept on his belt. Mae Chandler sat her crossword down and stood up for a better look.

They stopped at fifty yards, except for the figure in the center, a man taller than the rest, who came closer and held his palms open at his sides.

Mae looked to Chuck, "Looks like he wants to talk to someone, hon."

But Chuck, Sun Dagger Springs’ resident middle-aged patriarch, didn't budge. I looked over to the other side of the yard, where the cute blonde I’d been eyeing all afternoon was looking at me expectantly. I was inarguably the youngest, strongest male present, so I suppose that made me candidate number one to approach the white-clad strangers. At least, that's how I justified it to myself at the time. In hindsight I was just trying to impress the girl.

I went out through the fence gate. The center figure was almost seven feet tall, and the creases in his face made him look 45 - maybe even 50 – but in the best of health with brilliant blue eyes, like some wealthy Mediterranean recluse who drank his red wine and did his yoga everyday. Like the men behind him, his gesture promised me that he was unarmed.

I stopped five paces away from him. He was smiling.

"My name is Abiathar Ostermann," he said, with the hint of an unplaceable accent. "I am from the future."

I almost laughed, until I realized that he was no longer smiling.

What follows is my account of the twenty-one days I spent with Ostermann. My hope is that it will explain why I was ultimately forced to kill him.