The Monolith Monsters

From time immemorial,

the Earth has been bombarded

by objects from outer space.

Bits and pieces

of the universe,

piercing our atmosphere in

an invasion that never ends.

Meteors, the shooting stars

on which so many

earthly wishes have been born.

Of the thousands

that plummet toward us,

the greater part

are destroyed in a fiery flash

as they strike the layers

of air that encircle us.

Only a small percentage

survives.

Most of these fall into the water,

which covers two-thirds of our world.

But from time to time,

from the beginning of time,

a very few meteors have struck the

crust of the Earth and formed craters.

Craters of all sizes,

sought after and poured over

by scientists of all nations

for the priceless knowledge

buried within them.

In every moment of every day,

they come,

from planets

belonging to stars

whose dying light

is too far away to be seen.

From infinity they come.

Meteors.

Another strange calling card from

the limitless reaches of space.

Its substance unknown,

its secrets unexplored,

the meteor lies dormant

in the night, waiting.

Ben?

Who's that? Mr. Cochrane?

Yeah.

Come on in.

Looking for Dave?

Mmm-hmm.

Haven't seen him around

in a couple of days.

Is everything all right? Sure.

He had to go to Bakersfield, that's

all. He'll be back tomorrow sometime.

Weird, isn't it?

What's it called?

Beats me. I haven't even

figured out what the stuff is.

Where'd it come from?

The old San Angelo Road.

There's a whole flock

of it out there.

Lava, maybe?

No, it's a solid.

You can see strata,

if you look closely.

They must've skipped

this one in college.

Well, either that, or you slept

through one class too many.

Yeah, it'll probably turn out

to be an ordinary aggregate,

something simple

I'm unfamiliar with.

Still, somehow, it just doesn't

seem to belong, you know?

The desert's full of

things that don't belong.

Take the salt flats out there,

used to be an ocean bed.

Now, that ocean knew

that the middle of the desert

was a pretty silly place for it to

be, so it just dried up and went away.

But if it hadn't

been there once,

there wouldn't be

a salt mine out there now.

Without that, there probably

wouldn't even be a town.

Then there's me.

You?

I don't belong here either.

I never did.

San Angelo needs a newspaper like that

desert needs another bucket of sand.

Now, I ask you,

what good is a newspaperman

in a place like this, when nothing

ever happens worth writing about?

Say,

maybe I ought to be a geologist

like you and Dave, huh?

I've been stuck here

among rocks so long,

all I'd need is a refresher

course and I bet I'd be all right.

No, you stick

to your newspaper.

Who knows? Maybe I've just

discovered something new here.

And you can write a

world-shattering article about it.

I doubt if there's

even anything new, Ben.

A few things we haven't understood

yet, but nothing that's really new.

Morning.

Ben.

Hey, Ben.

Hi, this is Dave Miller. Is

Miss Barrett still at school?

She took the kids where?

The desert?

Isn't she afraid they'll roast

out there on a day like this?

No, I'll call her at home.

Thanks.

Ben!

Ben.

Wait a minute.

Wait a minute.

What is this, a field

trip or a riot? Goodness.

That's better.

Now, I want you all

to remember

not to touch anything

that you don't recognize,

and I don't want anyone

wandering too far from the car.

Do you understand?

Mmm-hmm.

Okay, explode.

Find something, Ginny?

Lizards.

Do they live there

together, Miss Barrett?

Well, why don't you ask them?

Maybe they're husband and wife.

Lizards don't get married,

do they?

Well, maybe not the same way

that people do.

Maybe they just like to be

together, like you and Mr. Miller.

Well, yes, I suppose so.

Why don't you

and Mr. Miller get married?

Why, Ginny!

Well, gee, you love him, don't you?

Whatever gave you

such an idea?

The way you look at him when

he stops for you at school.

Mother looks at Daddy

like that and she loves him.

You don't miss much, do you?

I like Mr. Miller.

Well, confidentially, so do I.

Miss Barrett.

Bye.

Bye!

Bye, Miss Barrett.

Bye, Ginny.

Thanks, Miss Barrett.

Hello, Mrs. Simpson.

Hi.

Hi, yourself. Have fun?

Uh-huh. Miss Barrett taught us

all about the irrigation dam,

and the San Angelo Canyon,

and we saw some lizards...

Whoa there! What's this?

It's from the desert.

That's where it stays.

Outside.

Mom, it's a souvenir.

Well, I can live without dirty old

souvenirs messing up my clean house.

Oh, Mom.

And your hands could stand

a good washing off.

Hurry up, now.

Supper's almost on the table.

Okay.

Ginny, we're waiting.

Just a sec, Mom.

Young lady, get in here

right now. Yes, ma'am.

I've never known an autopsy

to take this long before.

Dan, I've just called the

Medical Research Institute.

I'm shipping Ben's body

to them in the morning.

Why, Doc?

They might be able to tell us

what happened to him. I can't.

At first I thought it

could have been scleroderma,

an extreme hardening

of the skin.

But his entire body, organs,

skin, muscle tissue, everything,

he's been welded

into a solid mass.

Doc, you must have

found something.

That'd lead me to the cause?

Yes.

Not a thing, David.

There's nothing to go on.

It's not as if he'd been ill,

shown symptoms...

An intern with wet ears could've

told you as much as I been able to.

It'll take a specialist

to tell you any more.

I'm sorry.

What am I supposed to print?

Well, you can't print

anything. Not about this.

Can't print?

Look, I was a friend

of Ben's, too.

I'm just as sorry this

happened to him as anybody.

But I'm a newspaperman

and this is news.

All right, go ahead. And just what

do you think you can say about it?

"Local geologist

turns to rock.

"Autopsy fails

to turn up reason. "

You'd have the whole town

in a panic,

thinking some horrible disease

is running loose.

It's a funny thing.

Last time I saw Ben, he was kidding

about making a new discovery,

so I'd have

something to print.

Well, he came up with a story,

all right.

But if I print it, I get run

out of town for inciting a riot.

Or maybe for writing a crackpot

yarn nobody'd believe anyway.

I think there's more to this than just Ben.

What do you mean? The

condition the lab was in.

Something tore it to pieces,

almost wrecked it.

An explosion, wasn't it?

Well, if so, it had nothing

to do with Ben's death.

There weren't any flash burns

on the body,

no signs of exposure

to a blast of any kind.

It may have happened before,

Dave, or even afterwards.

I don't think it was an

explosion. What are you getting at?

This stuff. It was all over the wreckage.

But I don't know what it is.

Well, that's the rock I told

you Ben brought in yesterday.

Or one like it.

You told us one piece.

Yeah.

Wait a minute. The lab's covered with

it. There must be hundreds of pounds.

How'd it get there?

May I see that?

Today out in the desert,

one of my children picked up

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