Free Vortex by Ray Garton

“Papa came running out when he heard me screaming and he beat it over the head with a flashlight. If Papa hadn’t come along, I think that thing would have eaten me. I thought Papa had killed it at first, but it was only unconscious. We thought it was a little boy because he was so small, but he was naked and his... well, he had a... his, um, genitals... he wasn’t a little boy He wasn’t even human. Fangs, strange eyes, pointed ears. Papa was very excited because he’s always believed he was drawn to the mountain for a reason. He thought maybe this was it. He called a friend of his, Nathan Westphal. He has a website that covers all kinds of paranormal stuff, but especially activity related to Mt. Shasta. He’s written a couple of books about the mountain. Papa asked for his advice and Nathan said he was going to make a call first. He came over that morning to look at it and he said he’d contacted a couple of people who might know what to do next. And the next thing we knew, there was Mr. Ryker and his researchers. I’m not sure how it went from Westphal to Ryker, but that’s what happened. They wanted to set up a lab on the property. They gave Papa money, gave us all kinds of things—a new dishwasher, a new refrigerator, stuff like that. All they asked was that we not talk about it to anyone because they wanted to be left alone to work. They said they were going to find out what that thing was and where it had come from. But I didn’t like Mr. Ryker. I didn’t like any of them.”
    “What do they want with him, Penny?” Karen asked. “With Pyk, I mean.”
    “He’s very strong,” Penny said. “He’s telepathic. And he can push.”
    “Push?”
    “He has...” She groped for the word, then frowned as she considered it, as if she wasn’t sure it was the right one. “... influence.”
    “What does that mean?” Karen asked.
    “He can make people think things. And do things. Even things they don’t want to do, things they’d never do otherwise. He’s very powerful. At Aquino, we call that pushing. None of us can push. No one can that I know of. We’ve tried. They’d like it if we could. But we can’t. That’s why Pyk is so important to them.”
    Karen frowned. “If he can do this, and if he’s so powerful, then... why hasn’t he done it to them? ”
    “He has. When they first arrived, he... did some things. He was afraid and hungry and... well, other things, I guess.”
    “Other things?”
    “He pushed Carla—she’s a woman who works for Mr. Ryker—to have sex with him. She was in the lab with Pyk and Mr. Ryker and others and suddenly, she just took off her clothes, went to Pyk and bent over in front of him so he could... you know. And he did. Then he made one of the assistants, a man, roll up his sleeve and offer his arm to Pyk to eat. And he did. At least, that’s what Mr. Ryker told me. All of this happened before I got here. That’s why they brought me. Once they realized what Pyk was doing, they sedated him and kept him that way until I arrived and was able to communicate with him. The first thing they wanted me to tell him was that they—that we—were his friends and wouldn’t hurt him, that we wanted to help him. I knew that wasn’t true, but... it was my job. So I did it. After I’d, um... well...” She frowned and her gaze wandered around the room, as if she were searching for something.
    “What’s wrong, Penny?” Karen said.
    “Well... it’s just hard to describe to people who don’t know anything about it.”
    “Go ahead and do your best, and if I have any questions, I’ll ask them.”
    “After I read Pyk for a while, I was able to tell Mr. Ryker what he could do, what he was capable of.”
    “You read his mind?”
    “His... everything. It’s like—” She released a single breathy laugh. “Well, this might sound silly, but it’s kind of like that old TV show with Mr. Spock. You know, Star Trek ? He does this thing called a Vulcan mind meld where his mind