Invisible Empire by Jeff Turner

Invisible Empire by Jeff Turner

The crash occurred a little after midnight on the small county road that bisected the Western Utah municipality of Foxwood Hollow Farms. Town marshal Roger Bartholomew Patterson was on a return trip from Nevada where he’d been visiting a friend in Reno when he witnessed the crash occur.

What caused the accident remained unclear. One moment the semi with tractor trailer was driving without issue. Then it lost control, careening over the guardrail into a ravine. Its trailer dislodged. Driver and passenger appeared unhurt. Patterson pulled up as they crawled out of the wrecked cab.

He adjusted his gun-belt and climbed out of his Range Rover. A gibbous moon hung in the clear night sky, casting less than ample lighting, and forcing Patterson to use his Maglite. Out there it got dark at night, very dark, even for natives of the region. “Y’all alright?” Patterson called out to the two men. “Any injuries?”

His flashlight beam provided a better view of the vehicle’s two occupants as they stood in front of him, neither looking at all hurt. Both were white, late twenties or early thirties, average height, weight, build, and similar features. So much so that they could almost have passed for twins. They each gazed at the forty-nine-year-old Patterson, eyes bleak and cold like distant stars without a glimmer of life. They appeared almost foreign in some unidentifiable way, though both were dressed in regular business casual attire, which, come to think of it, was rare for truck drivers.

They remained stone cold and emotionless. Maybe they were foreign, Patterson thought, about to repeat his question. Then suddenly:

“Por favor, ayudame! Ayudame!”

A frenzied woman’s voice, muffled, but unmistakably a woman’s voice.

Patterson’s brow furrowed, eying the semi’s detached trailer. Frantic clanging on metal became audible. Not just one person then.

Patterson immediately drew his .357 Magnum, casting a glance at the driver and his passenger. “Get on the ground,” he said.

The two men obeyed. Patterson kept them in his line of sight as he went over to the trailer. The door had sprung open in the crash and Patterson shone his flashlight inside. His mind refused to accept what he saw.

Of course he’d seen Sound of Freedom. It was one of his favorite films, human sex trafficking being the issue that boiled his blood the most, that and illegal immigration.

But this, this couldn’t be real. And yet it was, evil of the type he’d never dreamed of encountering.

It resembled a cattle car, the entire trailer’s interior, the noisome stench emanating from it almost causing Patterson to retch. Cages—ones normally used for transporting livestock—held more than two dozen human beings, both male and female, utterly naked. Adults in their mid-to-late twenties, non-white Hispanics, the lot. Eyes wide with terror and pain, many red-eyed and delirious. They looked as if they’d been drugged, judging from their dilated pupils, though whatever they’d been given apparently had had little effect. Unless the terror they felt was so palpable the fear it instilled couldn’t be dimmed by any pharmaceutical. The sight almost brought tears to Patterson’s eyes.

He turned his attention back to their captors and circled back around to the semi. Oddly enough, the driver and passenger remained on scene. They could have easily made a break for it. It may have even been the smart move considering the amount of trouble they were in.

He kept his gun on the two men anyway, though they remained in a sort of fugue state, still showing no discernible emotion. “Remain where you are, or I will shoot you…” Patterson said.

Weapon still trained on the suspects, he scaled around the side of his car to the front driver’s side door. Inside was his radio, which connected to the dispatchers in Salt Lake City. They’d need to get out here, ASAP. This was too huge for a small-town cop.

“Excuse me…” came a woman’s voice from his right, over by the roadway.

Patterson spun around, clutching his chest in startled surprise. Jolts like this were not good for his heart, his doctor had warned him, suggesting he find a less stressful profession. Not that being the sole law enforcement officer in a small, boring one stoplight town was all that taxing. But the beam of his flashlight revealed a new arrival on the scene just a few yards away. A woman, a strikingly beautiful woman he couldn’t help but notice, who seemed to have been standing in the gloom without any light source before making her presence known, which struck him as unusual, considering how dark it was. How long had she been standing over there? For a moment, the people in the back of the semi’s trailer were forgotten. This woman had his full, undivided attention.

She was young, maybe only a teenager, though Patterson got the impression she was older than she looked. She was honestly the most beautiful woman he had ever beheld in his life. Long blonde hair hung loose over her back and shoulders. Pale, grey-blue eyes, with a luster like precious gemstones. Penetrating eyes. Short, barely five feet tall, maybe a couple inches more. Cherubic face, angelic, with milk white skin. Hourglass figure, with a prodigious bosom. She wore an expensive cobalt blue cocktail dress, short, low cut, and revealing. No bra. Her hair tousled, outfit slightly wrinkled, whomever she was, she’d come there in a hurry. But the question remained, what was she even doing out there?

Patterson scanned the area, bewildered, taking several cautious steps toward the woman. “Where’d ya come from? I mean where’s your…”

That was when he saw her car, a silver Mercedes Benz that appeared straight off the assembly line, idling along the shoulder of the road, running lights on. He didn’t recall seeing that before or even hearing an approaching vehicle.

“Oh…” he said.

She strutted up to Patterson, a sublime yet sinister air of authority to her presence, accompanied by the pleasant, sultry aroma of an expensive lavender perfume. At least he assumed it was lavender. Whatever it was, it was absolutely intoxicating, as was everything about this woman. Yet the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end, and a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach implored him to leave, to run far away and never return. She eyed him in silence, like a predator eyeing its prey, a goddess beholding an insect. Beads of sweat clung to his brow as she stared at him without saying a word. Finally, she spoke.

“Hi, my name is Stella Audrey Moore, I’m a federal agent with the Department of Homeland Security,” she said in a honeyed voice, holding up a badge that appeared official. Where had that badge come from? Where in that tight, skimpy dress did she even have anywhere to carry it? “I thank you for your due diligence in stopping here and offering your services, but they won’t be needed, the situation is under control.”

Patterson blinked as if coming out of a trance, staring at the woman for a long time without saying a word. He glanced over at the driver and passenger of the semi, who were now standing, observing the goings on though opting not to intervene.

“Situation is under control?” Patterson asked with righteous indignation. “These men are human sex traffickers, have a truckload of men and women shackled in the trailer of that semi! I am placing these two men under arrest, and am not leavin’ here until Salt Lake City PD is informed of the situation…”

Stella smiled, an icy, sardonic grin, brushing back a strand of her blonde hair. Her eyes bored into him like frozen steel daggers, pinning him into place with a feeling of near total paralysis. “Salt Lake City PD is well aware of the situation, Mr. Patterson,” she said. “And despite all appearances, you have not stumbled across a sex trafficking operation. These men and women illegally crossed our southern border. They’re illegal aliens, who are being taken to a detention center for processing prior to their deportation to their respective countries of origin…”

Patterson stood in awkward silence while her words sank in. Maybe he had misinterpreted the situation. Maybe he’d been exposed to too many social media postings decrying sex trafficking and its pervasiveness. Maybe he’d followed every right-wing conservative-leaning personality on Twitter/X that propagated such claims. And of course, the bumper sticker on his Range Rover, “#WWG1WGA,” “where we go one, we go all,” the motto for QAnon. He didn’t consider himself a particularly diehard conspiracy theorist, though he entertained what some might consider wild beliefs. He was just someone who did his research.

There were some very sick people in the world. He knew this without a shadow of a doubt. Yet he was 100% sure he’d come across a clandestine smuggling ring. The Deep State’s darkest secrets lay finally exposed for all the world to see. The thought of this caused a grin to falter on Patterson’s lips.

And the woman? She didn’t strike him as a federal agent. No. Not to be sexist, but she gave off sex worker vibes, judging by her mode of dress, which no federal agent would wear on the job, as well as her top-of-the-line vehicle. A high-class escort. He’d encountered the type before, had been in Vegas enough times to spot them pretty easily. This one was no exception. According to one account he followed on X, such women often worked hand-in-hand with traffickers.

But how had she known his name and managed to arrive right when she did? Near as he could tell, the two men hadn’t had the chance to alert anyone to their accident, and she had happened on the scene quickly, knowing precisely where to go and what she’d find. Her arrival raised more questions than answers. And red flags…

He just stood and stared, frozen like a trapped animal. Yet at the same time, this woman had him strangely aroused.

He found himself staring at her chest, her nipples visible through her dress, causing his face to redden. He lowered his gaze, only to make a more bizarre observation. The woman was barefoot. Yet her small feet appeared without any blemish, near immaculate. Odd. Damned odd.

“Think about it, Mr. Patterson. Sex traffickers target young women and children. The people in that trailer are able-bodied adults of both sexes. And nonwhite Hispanics, as are most illegal immigrants. Your due diligence and devotion to your profession are admirable, but you may go now,” she said. Patterson didn’t move. The woman, her eyes narrowing, repeated in a more definitive tone, “I said you may go now…”

A fog began to form in his brain, the woman’s words having a hypnotic resonance. Without conscious thought, Patterson turned around, heading towards his car, his mind going blank, legs moving without volition. But he fought against this, finally standing his ground. Armpits drenched with perspiration, he spun around and cast a defiant gaze at the young woman, fighting against his muddled head with all his might.

Stella smiled. “I’m impressed, Mr. Patterson. It’s not often I encounter individuals with such a strong will. But I can assure you, you haven’t stumbled onto any sex trafficking operation. Despite outward appearances. The fact that you care enough to actually impede my efforts here…I do find that admirable, I really do. Truly, from the bottom of my heart…”

There was something very, very wrong with this woman. As crazy as it seemed, Patterson felt convinced that she did something to his mind, some sort of mental telepathy. He was just a small-town cop, not an especially creative individual or prone to flights of fancy. But he knew that this woman, despite outward appearances, wasn’t human. At least not in the traditional sense. He had yet to observe her blink even once. That and she gave him the nervous jitters. And those eyes…

But he mustered up his resolve, keeping his cool. Best to keep all his cards close to the vest for now. He could ask to see her badge again, had sincere doubts she’d even shown him one to begin with. After all, her dress had no visible pockets and there really wasn’t anywhere she could have stashed it. More mental telepathy. Yet if she really had telepathic abilities and could conjure up a badge with just a thought, why couldn’t she project a more believable outfit for a woman claiming to be a federal agent? Perhaps to throw him off balance. Or—a more terrifying thought entered this mind—that to her this was some type of twisted game, one to which only she knew the rules.

Either way, she was good. Very good. But maybe…

“All right,” he said. “Very sorry to have inconvenienced you, ma’am. Will be on my way now. I just have one question before I go…”

The woman’s eyebrows raised, her interest visibly piqued. “Yes?”

“What is the name of the detention center where ya plan on takin these illegals?”

A blank look formed on Stella’s face as she stood and finally blinked a couple times. Not normal blinks but strange, vertical blinks from inner eyelids, her pupils now vertical slits, like a reptile’s. Patterson once again felt his skin crawl as a caustic smirk formed on the young woman’s face. “Very good, Mr. Patterson, very good. You’re not as dumb as you look. Unfortunately, that means I can’t let you leave here alive…”

Patterson pulled back the hammer of his magnum, aiming at Stella with a firm one-handed grip, the flashlight in his other hand illuminating her face.

It didn’t faze her in the slightest. She smiled like a vampire, a demon from the lowest levels of hell, which she may well have been, as far as Patterson was concerned.

“I don’t know what you are, lady, but I know ya ain’t no federal agent…”

“You’re right,” she said. “I’m not. My name really is Stella Audrey Moore, but my stage name is Jezebel De Sade. As I am sure you’ve undoubtedly surmised, I’m an escort. I work at a place you may have heard of, the Kit Kat Ranch, out in Nevada. I’m the very, very best, Old Man Johnson would attest, and many others would agree as well. But I’m much more than that. That’s why I was sent here to rectify this unfortunate development.” Her grin faded, her eyes coldly regarding Patterson. “And out of all the evil bitches out there, honey, well, I’m the worst…”

Her eyes rolled back into her head, becoming a monochromatic solid black. A piercing, inhuman shriek became audible, a horrific sound that poured into Patterson’s ears like finely ground up glass. Patterson staggered backward, feeling as if someone had thrown up on his soul, then he turned to his left, over by the semi several yards away, where he’d left the two men who’d been inside the vehicle prior to the accident.

Only they weren’t men. Not any longer. The beam of his flashlight revealed in their place two freakish monstrosities, eight-foot-tall tailless humanoid reptilians, with coarse, scaly forest green skin with lime splotches. They had large, unblinking, scintillating red-orange eyes burning hot with an eerie, iridescent gleam. Claws like meat hooks terminated the long, tapering fingers of their four-digit hands, capable of rending human flesh. They were strongly built, muscular powerhouses, lurching forward, mouths gaping in a soundless snarl to reveal their razor-sharp teeth. Saliva dripped from lipless mouths. A frightful, fetid odor pervaded the atmosphere around them, like that of carrion. Malignant puppets of madness, doing the will of this devil woman he’d encountered this dark summer night.

Their terrible jaws gaped at him, terrible eyes gazing into his unblinkingly, staring with primordial malignity.

Patterson’s body became rigid with terror, teeth shaking in their sockets. His heart jackhammered in his chest, about to burst, and his breathing became haggard and strained. Definitely not good for his heart condition. A lump formed in his throat, but he held his ground. The reptilians closed on him with clear malicious intent. But they were slow. Too slow.

Patterson fired his magnum three times in rapid succession. The first shot hit one advancing reptilian in the center of the chest, the next in the head, causing the top half of its cranium to explode like a smashed melon. The thing collapsed to the ground in a dead heap. The next shot was also on target and hit the second reptilian in the upper torso, causing the freakish monstrosity to topple to its knees with a primeval, banshee wail of pain.

But there was still the woman, Stella, or Jezebel De Sade, as she’d formally introduced herself just moments earlier. He turned back towards her. Her eyes remained solid, almost liquid black. Nervous energy tingled in Patterson’s limbs, hands trembling. He knew he should shoot her, though he had a strong disdain for any type of violence committed against women. Had that not been the case, he’d have likely ended up in jail, given some of the chaotic arguments he’d gotten into with his ex-wife. But this was no woman. This was a creature of instinct and desire from the abyss, the Whore of Babylon incarnate, the most evil “woman” he’d ever encountered in his life. There truly was evil in the world. This woman, coming to aid her invisible masters, was living proof of that.

He aimed his magnum at her, pulling back the hammer.

But de Sade only smiled, a demonic, vulpine grin that almost made him void his bowels. “Oh, you poor dear, now you’ve royally fucked up…”

With one lightning-fast motion, she bashed the heel of her right palm into Patterson’s mouth. The flashlight and magnum fell from his hands. The blow knocked him off his feet and sent him landing on his backside in the desert sand.

For such a small woman, she threw quite a punch. He tasted the coppery tang of blood. It oozed from his mouth, rolling down his chin, and dripped onto his clothing. Several of his teeth lay in a crimson pile in the sand beside him. His face stung, the pain so immense he had a great amount of difficulty getting up. But just as he tried to rise to his feet, he saw in the moonlight de Sade with his flashlight. Triumphant malice blazed in her eyes, that same damned grin on her face. And she slammed the large metal flashlight into Patterson’s head, accompanied by a bone-breaking crack.

A jagged, burning pain exploded in his brain. Bright spots of light flashed in front of his vision. He staggered back, then fell over, everything fading to black…

& & &

The first thing Patterson became aware of was the frigid cold, as if he’d been left in the desert overnight. The tile underneath him was a textured sheet of ice, causing him to immediately sit up. He was naked, he discerned that much, which may have partially explained why he felt so cold. But where was he?

Slowly, with great difficulty, he opened his eyes, only to find himself in a pitch-black room, a foul, fetid Stygian darkness crawling with menace.

He dragged gulps of stale air into his lungs, then found his left leg had been fitted with a shackle and chained to the floor.

“So, you’re awake now, Mr. Patterson?” came the familiar voice of that sultry demoness. Stella Audrey Moore, Jezebel de Sade. Whatever she chose to call herself. Her voice came from somewhere to his right, not far from where he was chained to the cold tile floor.

“Where am I? What are ya doin’ standin’ there in the dark?” Patterson demanded. “Tell me, you fuckin’ whore!”

A long silence ensued. “I don’t think you want to know, hon,” de Sade said, without raising her voice.

But Patterson would hear none of this. “No, woman, you’re gonna answer my question right now, god dammit, and tell me what happened to the people those creatures were truckin’ around!”

Another long pause ensued. “Alright, because you asked so nicely,” she said in that same quiet voice. “The same thing that’s going to happen to you…”

The sound of a large switch flipping, then the room was bathed in brilliant white light, revealing a most disturbing sight, one Patterson was not first able to consciously process.

The chamber was rectangular, like a long hallway, a narrow path down the middle. Hooks hung down on each side, from which hung slabs of meat. Human flanks, shorn of hair, and still fresh and dripping. Beneath each of the meat hooks were positioned metal tubs, presumably for bloodletting.

Now Patterson knew both why the room was so cold and its true purpose. A meat locker. And slaughterhouse. “Oh God! Oh Jesus Christ!” Patterson lamented. He flailed about like mad, on the verge of losing his mind. “Oh my God, no no, oh God, Christ!”

“I did tell you that this wasn’t a sex trafficking operation, despite outward appearances. The girls nowadays at places like the Kit Kat Ranch are programmed clones, except for the freaks like me who just love it, no grooming necessary. We don’t serve at the beck and call of any Deep State. The truth, as you can see, is far, far worse. They, we, have been here for a very, very long time, since well before the dawn of humanity, and soon our ultimate goal will be achieved, this world ours in its entirety. Nothing can stop it, not even you, Mr. Patterson. It’s bigger than all of us. A one world government, ushering in the New World Order. And here you are freaking out about human traffickers…”

Patterson began to hyperventilate, having the worst panic attack of his life. He screamed at the top of his lungs, throwing back his head, then attempted to spring at de Sade, who was out of range of his attempted assault.

“All you had to do was let it go,” said de Sade in a voice that sounded both exhausted and malicious. “But I guess for someone in your profession, that wasn’t a possibility.”

“People…people will be looking for me, people who will fight you…”

Stolid and impassive, Stella simply replied, “There will be no traces. And while a man of solid standing in your community, your disappearance won’t arouse too much suspicion, just one of the thousands of Americans who disappears in the southwestern United States every year, many of whom find themselves in similar predicaments to yours, lost and forlorn in one of the many deep underground military bases scattered across the country, the world. The domain of my people, the full-blooded reptilian humanoids, the Draconians, some from the Draco constellation, others of a terrestrial origin who have been living underground for millions of years…”

The massive door to the chamber pulled open and into the room behind de Sade emerged two figures. Humanoid reptilians, though different from the ones he’d seen earlier that night.

They were shorter for one, maybe five and a half feet tall. They were ochre-hued creatures, gangly, with large heads like those of a giant Galapagos Tortoise and faces like untreated leather. They were nude save for the black leather aprons they wore.

Their large yellow eyes, like mad marbles, fell upon Patterson for a moment, each bearing a morose, almost clinical, countenance.

One placed a large roll in brown cloth onto the table near the front of the chamber, de Sade moving out of the way to allow them to do their work unimpeded.

As Patterson looked on, he watched one of the reptilians unfurl the bundle, revealing an assortment of knives and other instruments commonly used by butchers to carve up animals.

Patterson shrieked, every cell in his body alive with a terror he’d never known in his life.

As the one reptilian inspected the carving implements, the other produced a ball gag, removing it from a bin on the floor next to the table. The creature sauntered over to Patterson with an air of menace. Patterson’s head jerked up in sudden fright.

The reptilian then moved to gag him. He fought back with all his might, but the reptilian was much stronger than it looked, with strength akin to that of a great ape.

This was the end. He knew it, there was no staving it off. Stella now approached him, bending over and peering down at him, hands on her knees.

An involuntary shudder surged through Patterson as her grey-blue eyes bored into his heart, mind, and soul. Despite her candor and disposition earlier, she showed no pleasure in any of this.

“Sorry, hon,” she finally said. “You’re one of the cleverer ones, but you, a full-blooded human, committed murder, which is unforgivable to my people. Well, I call them my people, but really, I’m a hybrid, part human, human like you. And a vegetarian, I might add.” She paused for a moment, eying Patterson for the first time with a gaze revealing the slightest hint of empathy. “Goodbye, Mr. Patterson, I bear you no ill will, really, I don’t. I just hope you’re able to forgive me. If not, well, I can live with that. You’d honestly be surprised what all I can live with…”

With that she turned and exited the chamber, right as the two reptilian butchers set about their grisly task. It was a fate that shouldn’t be wished upon anyone, and yet it happened to Roger Bartholomew Patterson, a fate more bizarre and macabre than anything his favorite conspiratorial social media channels could have ever conceived of.

The first butcher approached with a long steel blade, placing a metal bucket on the ground in front of Patterson. Then, with its four-digit reptilian hand, it tilted up Patterson’s head, hoisting the blade in an upward motion, poised to slash through the marshal’s throat.

Patterson remained still, voicing no further protestations, the gag making him unable to do so, that and seeing the futility of such actions. He said to himself a silent prayer that someday this evil would be brought to an end. It was all he could do, his means of retaliating against his captors virtually nonexistent.

He closed his eyes and cleared his mind, through some miracle able to keep his composure as death’s icy grasp came over him in the form of a massive, debilitating pressure in his chest. Like that of an elephant stomping down on it.

A heart attack, a respite from the more gruesome fate he was seconds from experiencing. The final lethargy then crept through his veins. Death followed within seconds.

& & &

As she strutted down the dim, rock-hewn, underground corridor away from the abattoir, Stella Audrey Moore, aka. Jezebel de Sade, put in her AirPods, her means of drowning out the screaming, crying, and despair that were virtually nonstop in this subterranean complex.

This part of her job she did not enjoy. She would rather be at the Kit Kat Ranch “entertaining” wealthy old white men than down in this place, as she had been doing earlier that night prior to being telepathically summoned to the crash scene. Well, that wasn’t the most enjoyable activity either. Quite the opposite. She much preferred men of color, and mixed ones, when it came to sex. Even then, most men, most human beings, bored her. Roger Patterson, however, was a rare individual, one of the handful of men she’d met that actually managed to earn from her a modicum of respect.

She stopped a few yards down the corridor, staring over her shoulder at the abattoir, then taking a moment to deliberate. She’d never normally do this, but with the butchers so engrossed in their work, they’d never notice.

Besides, Patterson would be just as dead either way.

With minimal effort she briefly took control of Patterson’s mind. Not his consciousness, just his basic bodily functions. With a simple stimulated signal to the brain, eyes rolled into the back of her head, she achieved the desired result.

In the distance, she watched as Patterson convulsed, sweating buckets, shaking and spasming as death’s icy grasp took ahold of him in the form of a massive heart attack.

It would arouse no suspicion. His heart condition was real. No questions would ever be asked. And given her reputation, no one would even suspect. An out of character move on her part.

It was too bad he had to die, but it was really for the best. Men like that were dangerous, especially when they went down rabbit holes pertaining to the true nature of the world around them. Nothing like that in films like Sound of Freedom, which espoused that black and white dynamic conservatives like Patterson so loved. No, the truth was far more insidious. A world where sixty-five million years after the extinction of the dinosaurs, reptilians still ruled the earth. And human beings were sheep…

* * * * THE END * * * *
Copyright Jeff Turner 2025

Image Source: “they came for our women” shared by Ebenezer (pulp fiction collection)