Goodbye Bernard. The cold plasticized face of my friend lay motionless in a cocoon of crimson fabric and dark wood. Bernard had passed peacefully in his sleep, at the age of ninety-four. It was a small turnout, Bernie, as he had let only one person call him, had outlived our colleagues, save for me, and he had never wed. He was no nonsense, tough as nails, by the book. He drank to cope. He didn’t ask for help. I had sought medical advice, after that night, but never been able to divulge the route of my problems because I had been sworn to secrecy for the last 56 years. With the passing of Bernard, all involved that night are no longer here. There’s no longer a pledge to uphold. So I write this. I write this as the most important thing in my otherwise uneventful life. I write this to be documented somewhere other than redacted government files. I write this so someone, anyone, will know what happened one stormy night, in a small Midwestern town in 1966.

I worked in a small field office for the FBI- not nearly as fancy as it sounds. The job was mostly comprised of paperwork and severely lacked in legwork. Bernard was my boss. As we looked down the barrel of a long night, having closed the Goetz case, mounds of paperwork ahead, Bernard audibly cleared his throat from the across the plainly decorated office room: “Pie?” He asked. “No, but I could use about a quart of coffee,” I responded. We grabbed our coats and hats and made for the diner just down the street. Glo’s was a neighborhood staple dating back more than thirty years. In the past five its clientele had transformed to a somewhat younger crowd and it being a Friday night, we knew what we were in for. Bernard was 38 and I had just turned 31. Glo, god bless her heart, now well into her 70’s still waited tables- she was proud of what she had built and if the teen crowd brought in anything, it was money. “Sammy, Bernie- how are you two tonight?” Bernard shot a sideways but affectionate glance toward Glo, the only person he allowed to call him such without correcting them; “it’s Bernard, please.” Which I had heard more times than I could count. “Rhubard.” He said with half a smile. “Coffee, Glo, please, coffee.” I added. “Comin’ right up, you two.” Just as Bernard was about to comment on the state of music coming from the jukebox, as he always did, a familiar voice lauded from it. Sinatra. Sinatra with a new recording that was tearing up the charts. And Bernard looked at me, he received his pie, and said “that’s more like it.”

A storm rolled in as Bernard enjoyed the rhubarb and I worked my way through a few cups of coffee. We sat in silence, not an uncomfortable one, but a silence. I had only been at this branch of the Bureau for 6 months, Bernard, five years. We got along as well as coworkers can. The front door of Glo’s fluttered open and closed just slightly in the face of the mighty wind that came in tandem with the rain now pouring down. Its fluttering caused the bell above to chime every time it did so. My back to the door, Bernard, pie finished, looked toward me to most likely suggest we leave, when rather than look at me, he looked through me and made the kind of face  one only makes when they don’t understand something. I looked over my shoulder “What do you see?” I found nothing and no one at the front door, or anywhere near it to spark inquiry. “Nothing. Nothing. Let’s, uh, let’s go.” He replied. I threw down a few bills for Glo and we grabbed our hats and jackets.   

As we exited I bumped into a teen and as I turned to apologize I saw something. Something I can only describe as a face that seemed to be turned directly toward me and to the side at the same time. A Picasso of a human. By the time I had blinked to correct my obviously tired eyes the teen was staring back at me with a scowl. “Pardon me.” Bernard and I exited.

Back at the office, Bernard was off. Usually a calm and collected stoic man, he had taken to pacing the room, casually, not at a rate of alarm, but certainly uncharacteristic for Bernard. “Something bothering you?” I feebly offer. “Sam.. I saw something at the diner. Something I could not have seen.” “What do you mean?” The phone gave out an abrupt ring.

“Sam Bering, FBI” I pick it up to a panicked voice- “His face… its crooked…” “Glo?” “His face, Sammy, his face… I don’t, understand what’s happening. Ray, the cook, it started with him.” “Slow down Glo, what do you mean his face is crooked?” Upon hearing this Bernard grabbed the phone from me “Glo, its Bernie, are you okay? Yes. We’re on our way back. What? No, you’re not crazy, I saw it too.” Bernard hangs up the phone, “Let’s go.” “What’s going on?” I implore. “We need to walk and talk, Glo saw what I saw, and they’re still there. Get your coat.” “Bernard, what did you see? What’s going on?” “You got your sidearm?” Was his only answer. We turn the collars of our overcoats up to the storm raging outside and pin our hats to our heads. No sooner had we gotten out the door and Bernard began to open his mouth than the rain took on a tint. Yes, a tint. The warm glow the streets lights offered turned a greenish hue. Not informed by any neon signs or the like. The entirety of the street, as far as the eye could see, the light was transformed. “Double time” Bernard barked as we persisted through the storm.

We arrive at Glo’s. Despite the many and inviting lights emanating from within, there’s not a single sign of life in Glo’s Diner. “You got your radio? I’m gonna go around back and lets meet inside- make sure we catch anything that might be going on.” Bernard ordered. “Roger that.” Talkie in one hand, sidearm in the other, I cautiously enter the front door. A door I had walked through many times, a place that had offered comfort, a place of refuge, but it was neither at this moment. My firearm at the ready, but pointed toward the floor, I made my way through the front of house. Peering over booths and across empty tables, I heard a slight rustling from the back, to which I called out- “Bernard- what you got?” Silence. “Bernard, answer me buddy!” Nothing still. I raised the flip-up bar-top entrance only to recoil at what my hand had found- more green, but this was a substance. A substance I couldn’t identify, something I hadn’t quite come across before. Not so much a sludge as it was a pumice… sandy, but smooth. Green and sandy and… ::CRACKLE::, my talkie sprang to life. “Bernard?” I responded almost immediately. No answer, just dead air. Then, something. A whirring? And a clicking? Was it morse code? No. It was… odd. As I listened to the noises growing stranger and stranger I stared at the substance on my hand… was it… moving? Just then another moving thing caught my eye- it was Glo- she was crouched on the floor behind the bar, her eyes wide as saucers. I rushed over to her. Before I could get within three feet she brandished a broken broom handle, the splintered sharpness of it directed toward me. “Glo! Its me, Sammy, you called us, what’s going on? Are you okay?!” “How can I be sure its you??” Her voiced cracked in fear as she cried, never lowering the make-shift spear. “Glo, Bernie and I have been here a hundred times, you called US, you know me! Where is everyone? What happened? It’s Sammy!” Scared and her eyes flitting across the room behind me, she continued: “Well I thought Ray was Ray, but he’s not anymore… he’s not…” Something grasped my shoulder at this very moment. I whirled around simultaneously pulling up my firearm in the direction of that grasp, only to find Bernard- “Woah! Woah, buddy, its me!” He exclaimed. “How the hell you gonna sneak up on me like that?!” I demanded. “How’s Glo?” He asked, disregarding my question. I didn’t take my eyes off Bernard as he moved to check on the purveyor of the establishment- who had yet to drop her weapon. “She’s not okay, Bernard. We need to call the EMTs. Something very strange is going on here.”

12:05 am. Tod and Roger are loading Glo, who still has yet to relinquish her weapon, into the back of the ambulance. “Thanks boys.” I offer as they close up the doors. “No problem,” Tod retorts- “its been a weird one tonight. A lot of reports coming through of folks saying people look weird- whatever the hell that means.” “Look weird?” I ask. “Yeah,” chimes in Roger: “Crooked faces, two faces, features out of place… I’m not sure what to make of it all, but most of our calls tonight have been for hysteria. Not so much physical harm. Strange night. But that’s usually how calls this late go.” “Thanks Roj, that’s good info to have. Let us know that Glo is okay, will ya?” I request. “You got it.”

12:10 am and Bernard is sitting outside the diner- looking surprisingly fresh for the evening we’ve had. “What the hell do you think is going on?” I ask. “What do you mean?” He replies. “Bernard, there’s been hysteria, reports of people with two faces, we walked outside to green rain… and I don’t know if you encountered any of it, but here, let me take you inside- there’s a… there’s a weird substance just behind the bartop.” “Its late Sam, let’s get our whits about us and come at it fresh tomorrow, eh?” Though I’d only known him for six months, I found this to be the least Bernard-like comment he had ever uttered. I looked at my watch to refute this line of thinking- 12:14 am. Before I could offer a rebuttal, both of our talkies sprang to life. Similar noises as before, but seemingly more… is intentional the word? At the sound of them, Bernard’s shoulders pulled back and his spine straightened. His expression went blank and though his mouth was closed a series of whirs and clicks came from his direction, though not seemingly from his throat or mouth. ::VRRRRRAAAAAAHHHHHHHH:: went the talkies so loudly I doubled over and covered my ears. As I shot down to shield myself I swear on a stack of bibles Bernard’s face looked exactly as that teen’s had earlier- forward and sideways at the same time. The talkie’s noise faded simultaneously to the cessation of the rain. A maelstrom which had not let up this entire night. Bernard lay motionless on the ground. “Bernard!” I scrambled to my friend and partner. He sat up, looked at me with a slight confusion, and as he stood, said: “We gotta get over to Glo’s, she’s seen something strange.” “Bernard- we just put Glo in the back of the ambulance, she’s shaken up but she’s gonna be okay.” “What?…” he asked, seemingly bewildered. “Bernard- are you okay? We’ve been at Glo’s for over two hours- I was about to show you something odd inside, just before the talkies went nuts with static…” What I have come to rationalize as an ungodly and all encompassing wild-eyed gaze of realization flooded Bernard’s face. “I saw… I saw.. I wasn’t me…” he let out in a stupor. “What are you trying to say?” He shook his head as one would to shake off a bad dream. “Nothing. Nothing. Let’s get back to the office and write up our report. We still need to get the Goetz paperwork done tonight too.” Wary, and not sure what I had seen that night, let alone what Bernard had experienced, we returned to the office.

A week later four agents from the DC branch were in our office. They wanted to talk about that night. Apparently there was an issue with the paperwork. Bernard’s recollection of that evening had paled in comparison to the fantastical string of events I had related. They had me see a shrink. Then I began therapy on my own a year later. Well, a year and a week later, because that walkie talkie, now out of date by decades. Batteries dead for decades, still comes to life at 12:14 am every single night- buzzing, crackling, whirring, popping. In what I understand to be a searching for an otherworldly signal it received but once, 56 years ago.