Whitley Strieber - The Grays

“They’re real, they’re here, and my colleagues are wrong. If that video—”

“Don’t you dare go on TV about this, Chris. Don’t you dare !”

Chris raised his hands defensively. “Be it far from me, unless—”

“Unless nothing! No more, Chris. I have gone from CalTech to U. Mass to this because of your damn UFOs. Below here, we are looking at the junior-college pit.”

“I reserve judgement until I have seen the video. If it’s as good as I think it’s going to be, it might just get us back to CalTech.”

“You are so fired, Chris. You will never, ever get back there. My God, you made a public idiot of yourself on national television.”

“I told the truth!”

He had appeared on Dateline as an advocate for the reality of UFOs, and his status as a CalTech professor had been used to give him credibility. Within a year, he was out. At U. Mass, it had been an article in the Boston Globe that had quoted his Dateline statements. He lasted six months that time.

Dan told himself to keep out of it. But then he thought that the poor woman was just so vulnerable, with that little baby, and, as much as he liked Chris, he was way off base on this one. “Alien abduction is seizure-related folklore. Did I ever tell you that I suffered from waking nightmares when I was a child? Which is why I know what this is. I saw these little figures. Yeah, me, Chris. I’m an abductee, by your rather dubious—excuse me—standards. But because I also happen to possess a little professional knowledge of the brain, I know where the aliens come from—” He pointed to his own head. “The same place that ghosts and demons and—whatever—goblins come from. And not from some damn field on the outskirts of a one-horse town in Kentucky.”

“Officially, I believe that Wilton is classified as a half-horse town.”

“Whatever, we saw a prank, it was terrifying, and now the Air Force is involved, and there is likely to be hell to pay for these students and this institution, and that is a damn crying shame! Although they do deserve it. The students, not poor Bell.”

“The Air Force said they weren’t there.”

“Dan,” Nancy asked, “are you concerned about your tenure bid? You must be.” She turned to her husband. “Because he won’t involve you. That I will not let him do.”

“All the witnesses—”

“Don’t even start, Chris, my dear love. Dan and Katelyn did not see this. And Kelton, look at him, he’s on thin ice as it is, the history department’s a basket case. Don’t involve them, Chris. Don’t you dare.” She looked at Dan. “How’s it going, by the way?”

“Marcie is how it’s going.”

“Marcie is your referee? You’ve got to be kidding. She hasn’t voted yes on a tenure since Clinton was in the White House.”

Now Dan went for the bottle, poured a glass, sucked it dry. “This is pretty bad,” he said, looking at the label.

“Six dollars at Kroger, don’t knock it,” Chris said. “Now, listen to me. I don’t want to set you off again, but you do realize that this is a historical event. A large group of witnesses, armed in some cases with video equipment, have observed, and, I hope, recorded a UFO on the ground up close. Exhibiting every evidence of the presence of an abductee inside. Which I intend to proclaim to the world.”

“Chris, shut up!”

He looked at his mild-mannered wife in open astonishment. “Excuse me?”

“Just you shut up! Are you hard of hearing or something? Okay, look, you do this and you do it without me and Jillie, because we will be gone.”

“Where?”

“Anywhere!”

“Nancy, this is proof!”

“Oh, Jesus. Junior college, here we come.” She stood up. “I think I’m leaving.” She picked up Jillie in her carrier.

What Katelyn feared was that there had been a murder out there, involving God only knew what sort of bizarre method. A murder, and, perhaps, if the shadow Dan had seen was really somebody, a murderer who was still nearby.

“If you get yourself fired,” Nancy told Chris as she pulled on her coat, “expect divorce papers, mister.”

“Let’s approach it from the direction of each of our specialties,” Chris suggested.

He seemed unbothered by his wife’s outburst. And indeed, Nancy did not actually walk out the door. Katelyn thought, It’s a real marriage, then. They’re long-haulers like us . She knew where this kind of fight took you, in the end. It took you to bed. “Well, certainly,” she said, attempting to move things to a somewhat calmer level, “from the standpoint of the sociologist, we witnessed a real, physical event that I fear was tragic. We all do, or we wouldn’t be here huddled together in the back of the proverbial cave in the dead of the night.”

Dan said, “I’m in agreement that it wasn’t a hallucination. It was a prank and possibly somebody was injured. I agree there. Unless some genius actress has just recently emerged here at Bell, which I very much doubt.”

“I thought Death of a Salesman was pretty good,” Chris said.

Dan smiled. “ Death of a Salesman is not working when you find yourself pulling for Willy Loman to commit suicide.”

“What we didn’t see was an alien spacecraft taking somebody on a rough ride,” Nancy said. “I want that established, Chris. Admitted.”

“So, what did we see?” Chris’s question was softly put.

Silence fell.

Katelyn said, “My concern is the injury issue. And frankly, getting awakened in the middle of the night. It is the middle of the night. I am outraged and I am scared.” She told herself it was mostly outrage. She knew that it was mostly fear. “I think somebody might be badly injured, hidden in some dorm basement right now, trying to tend her burns with Bactine or something.”

“Don’t say that,” Nancy said, shivering

“What’s the enrollment picture looking like, Nance?” Dan asked. He was well aware that the psychology department was overstaffed. If Bell had another bad enrollment season, he could not only be passed over for tenure, he could see his professorship dissolved. Obviously, a campus death would not be helpful.

“Iffier than last year, actually.”

“Maybe the idea that we’ve had an alien visitation would actually help,” Chris said.

“Excuse me, guys,” Nancy asked, “but who’s in the kitchen?”

“That would be nobody,” Katelyn said. Except she had also heard a sound—a chair scraping against the kitchen tile floor. “Excuse me,” she said, standing up. “Is that somebody there?” she asked as she headed across the dining room.

The kitchen was empty, but as she walked in, Katelyn thought she might have seen the back door closing. She called, “Dan, come in here.”

Dan got up, sucking in breath as he did so. He came into the room. Nancy and Chris followed close behind.

“I don’t want to alarm anybody,” Katelyn said softly, “but I think someone just went out on the porch.”

Dan opened the door. The tiny side yard was bright with moonlight, and clearly empty. He peered along the driveway, then stepped out and looked at the street. Cold, quiet, that was all.

“What gives?” Katelyn asked as he returned.

He shook his head. “All quiet on the Oak Road front.”

“I heard the chair, and I thought—I don’t know what I thought.”

“It must have been the wind.”

“There is no wind.” She put her hand on a chair, dragged it. “It was somebody doing this.”

“There’s nobody,” Dan said. He locked the back door. “At least, not anymore.” He had the odd feeling, though, that this was not right. He shuddered. The room seemed somehow—what? It was clean enough, but it seemed—well, there was no way around it: the place felt… occupied. “Does it seem—” He shook his head. How could he explain what he felt? Watched, when there was obviously nobody else here.