Whitley Strieber - The Grays

Adam rejected every effort she made to find out about his people, his world, any of it. If she tried to penetrate his mind the way he did hers, by latching onto the pictures stored there, all she’d ever get was white light. Static. He blocked her.

It was a little sinister feeling, truth to tell. What did he have to hide?

She became aware of a siren outside, which was certainly unusual for University Park. This was not a siren-oriented neighborhood, no way. The deep, booming horn that accompanied it announced that it was a fire truck.

Well, that was more believable. There were dorm fires over on the two campuses every so often, usually involving mattresses or common-room couches. Once in a blue moon one of the beautiful old U. Park houses burned. Still, it would be extremely serious if the facility was threatened in any way, so she got up from the couch, went to the front hall, and put on her jacket.

“Hello,” Ted said as she passed through the living room.

“I’m going out. Back in a few.”

He knew not to ask, of course.

When she reached the street, she smelled a faint tang of smoke. Okay, that was to be expected if there was a fire in the area. She got in her car and drove to the facility. She was appalled, as she turned the corner, to see three big fire trucks in the street.

Her mouth went dry, she began mentally reviewing the steps that had to be taken to protect the secure areas. Nobody, no fireman, no fire inspector, must go down that elevator.

As she pulled into the driveway, she saw that the house itself was not burning, but there were firemen in the drive. She fumbled frantically through her purse looking for her credentials. Mike was in Washington and Andy was off. They often left Adam alone. He was safe down there, and when he wasn’t being interacted with, he lay as inert as an abandoned toy. If he began to move around, sensors would alert her and Andy, and they could watch him from their laptops. It had never happened, though.

She stepped out of the car and walked over to the firemen. Just the other side of their garden wall there was smoke.

“What’s going on?” she asked.

“Grass fire, probably started by kids.”

“It’s not going to come over this far, is it?”

“No, ma’am. That’s why we’re here.”

“Okay, thank you. Listen, I’m going to be in the house. If there’s any change, please let me know.”

She entered by the front door. Before going down, she went first into her office and turned on her computer. After it had voice identified her, she pulled up the feed from Adam’s chamber.

Unlike the human eye, the camera simply saw what was in front of it. On camera, you could sometimes glimpse Adam. He could feel you watching, though, and would usually disappear in under a second.

She was shocked to find him pacing, the slim gray form speeding in a blur from wall to wall. At least he wasn’t flying around like some kind of gigantic berserk blowfly.

Immediately, she went to the elevator, pressed her thumb against the print reader, and stepped inside. She dropped down into the pit. Quickly, she prepped, just covering her face and hands with emollient and leaving it at that. Her skin was as stiff as leather anyway. She didn’t bother with an antihistamine shot, but she did stuff an epinephrine injector into the pocket of her slacks. Then she stepped into the lock, waited for the outer door to close, and entered the cage.

“Hi,” she said aloud. She went to her chair, sat down, closed her eyes, and directed her attention to the physical sensation of her body. By thus removing her attention from her thoughts, she signaled to Adam that he could enter her.

He rushed in with all the eagerness of a dog leaping to its master’s breast after a long absence… or a lion pouncing. It felt like both things when Adam came into her. This time, he didn’t go to her sexual memories, but rather to earliest childhood.

She found herself back home in Philly, in Mom’s study, and all the furniture was incredibly tall. She was gliding from chair to chair, and her heart was soaring. It was a place he’d gone to frequently, the moment she had taken her first steps.

She loved these memories Adam would bring up out of childhood’s amnesia. Because of him, she had remembered her birth and even before, a sort of secret communion with her mother in the womb.

Then he went to a moment in the living room when she was about two, when she had stood watching the sunlight slanting in through the window, and listened to the voice of the sun singing a song whose words were deeper in her than even Adam could reach.

The message of these excursions into her earliest life was clear: see what I am about to show you with the open eyes of a child. She emptied her mind even more and waited.

Drifting in like a dream, she saw the Earth from above. North America was wheeling slowly toward the sunset. But the coastlines were changed. Florida was just a narrow spike, half its usual size. The Caribbean was mostly featureless blue. The whole East Coast was submerged beneath a brown scar of filthy water. Then she saw numbers, and she realized that these were a series of dates, ranging from 2012 to 2077.

She sucked in breath. She now understood the cruise ship, the starving supermarket: Adam was warning her about a great catastrophe.

“Oh, Adam,” she said, “I’ll tell the colonel. I’ll be sure to tell him.”

He began shooting around like a rocket, slamming into the walls with hideous, crunching thuds.

“Adam!” She leaped up out of the chair, but he was whizzing now, racing so fast she could hear the bzzt of his passing but not see so much as a glimpse of gray skin or the gleam of one of his huge black eyes.

At that moment, without the slightest warning, thick smoke came pouring through every air-conditioning vent in the room.

For an instant, she was frozen, her mind unable to take in what she was seeing.

The smoke roiled along the ceiling, and she saw that it was filled with glowing red streaks. The lights began flickering, grew dim.

“Adam,” she screamed, “we’ve got to get out!” In two strides she was across the room. She fumbled open the cover on the bail-out switch and hit it with the heel of her hand.

Sirens erupted, the facility went to emergency lighting, and the door to the lock slid open. “Adam,” she screamed, “Adam!”

The smoke came down like a curtain, turning everything inky dark. An instant later, the fire struck her head and neck with ferocious, terrifying heat. Covering her head, she dropped to the floor. “Adam! Come toward me, Adam, stay low!”

Nothing happened. There was bare visibility here, and it was hot and getting hotter. She could smell in the stink of the smoke the additional stench of her own singed hair. The next breath she took caused a reflex of a kind she didn’t know existed. The choking was a fearsome weight slammed down on her back, the gagging like some sort of spring unraveling in her throat.

She backed out through the airlock and into the control room. Here, meteors of plastic were dripping down from the ceiling.

She was sick with dread, she knew that she had lost Adam, but she also knew that she had to get out of this place fast or she would be burned to death. The elevator doors were open, but she would not dare to enter it. Feeling her way along, she came to the door of the emergency stair. She reached up into the heat and opened it. As she went through, smoke gushed in behind her, and she only just managed to get the door closed.

Crying and screaming, she opened it a crack, but there was nothing but smoke and now also flames licking into the shaft. “Adam! Adam! Adam!”

The door began to crackle, and heat hit her in the face even though she was low, and she had no choice but to slam it again.