Whitley Strieber - The Grays

This was all so totally new that he could not even think about it, let alone explain it. In truth, he was being affected by a simple electromagnetic field that was being applied with great care to about two million specific neurons in his brain. It wasn’t magic. There is no magic. There is only the unknown—in this case, a very old and experienced science possessed of a great knowledge of how bodies and brains work.

Objectively, he recognized that it must be some sort of illusion. Even so, the fear was a claw clutching his heart.

He felt his body turn and begin to move away from the house. No amount of effort would get him back into his head or enable him to regain control of his movements.

He tried to call to Dad, then, in his rising panic, to the police. Nothing worked. He could not make his voice turn on. Despairing now, he thought of how very, very sad his parents were going to be, never knowing what happened to him like this.

Somebody help me. Please, somebody!

We are helping you .

He felt himself turn, felt his feet dip into the snow, felt it blow against his chest.

Now I will remove myself from you , the voice said. Do not run again .

In a moment, he began to go up through his body. In another moment, he was seeing through his eyes again.

The wind blew, the pines moaned, snow flew. He had been taken deep into Lost Land, so deep that there was nothing around them but pines. No lights, no houses, just the pale glow of the snow.

We’re the Three Thieves but we didn’t steal you .

Yes we did .

Shut up!

“Okay… I hear you.”

Nobody moved.

He was well aware of the mystery he was facing. Remarkable, indeed. Then he saw movement in the woods, and a fourth gray appeared. He was not squat and kludgy like these three. He strode on long legs and his head was more in proportion. Coming through the snow, he was as graceful as a dancer.

He stopped behind the three and raised a long, thin arm, sort of like an Indian chief or something. Conner noted: no muscles. Therefore the skin itself must contain millions of micromuscles.

He took a step toward him. Conner took a step back. He came closer.

Conner yelled as loud as he could: “Get away! Get away from me!” Then he clapped his hands over his mouth, actually surprised at himself. But there was more than one Conner in here, and the other one, the little child alone in the woods, was still really, really scared and did not care about the fact that this was contact, it was historical and damn awesome that it was him doing it or any of that.

The other Conner took over and ran, he just ran, he didn’t care where, deeper into Lost Land, past the great, frowning trees, into the tangled places where nobody ever went.

The more he ran, the more the panicked Conner replaced the curious Conner, and the wilder and more frantic his flight became.

Soon he began to feel his feet burning. He was getting cold. When he wasn’t around the grays, he needed more than just pajamas out in this blizzard. Something they did had been keeping him warm. Curious Conner thought, Heat without radiance or forced air or anything. I wonder how they do that?

And he slowed down a little. Now his breath was coming out in huge puffs and his feet were really burning and it was meat-locker cold.

Sobbing like an infant, he stumbled to a halt. He forced the tears down, and finally stood trembling from the cold, rubbing his shoulders.

The wind roared in the trees, and a big gust stung him head to toe with snow. Cold this cold felt just like being burned and he screamed into its howl, but his loudest cry was so small against it that he could hardly hear it himself.

This was idiotic. He was here to think, not cry like some idiot. So okay, he turned around and around, trying to get his bearings.

No bearings.

He hopped from foot to foot to keep the agony down. But it didn’t work, he was barefoot in the snow in the middle of a blizzard and wearing cotton pajamas. He was quite familiar with the dangers of hypothermia. If he’d known the temperature, he could probably have calculated to the second just how long before he lost so much reason that he could no longer hope to survive.

He had never thought much about dying before, but he thought about it now because it appeared that it was going to happen to him. He was already getting numb and that was a really bad sign, it was a sign of death coming, he knew that. The next step was the final sleep.

“Dad! Mom! Hey, I’m lost out here! Hey, HEY!”

Ridiculous, meaningless effort.

“Grays! Hey, I’m here! I’m willing to negotiate! HEY!”

Nothing.

How could such a smart kid turn into such a moron? He’d just blown contact, and probably frozen himself to death in the process.

When he tried to walk, his legs wouldn’t move. Muscle spasm due to advancing hypothermia.

He did not want to die before he’d kissed a girl or had a paper published, or even driven a damn car.

His pajamas snapped in the wind, his face got more and more caked in frost, and he prayed his usual prayer, “Any God who happens to be real, this is Conner Callaghan and I could use some help. Thank you! Uh, really use it!”

The world around him seemed to grow quiet. He looked down at his right hand. He could see the snow hitting it and bouncing off, but he could no longer feel anything. But he did feel something really funny, a sort of jittering in his heels. It spread through his feet, and he noticed it in his hands, too. Then it went up his arms and legs, bringing with it wonderful warmth like a really good blanket would if he was cold and Mom came in and tucked him in.

Then a face popped out from behind a tree, huge eyes, tiny mouth communicating surprise, fear, concern all at once. Boy , Conner thought, do they ever look like bugs .

Oh, no .

“I won’t run, relax. As long as you keep me warm, consider us friends.”

What’s he saying?

I have no idea .

Striding out of the snow on his long, thin legs, came the tall gray. As he came closer, Conner could see that his body shimmered with light, as if he was swathed in flickering, ever-changing rainbows. His eyes gleamed with bright reflections of the trees around them even though it was night, almost as if they somehow enhanced light. Then he saw this beautiful figure in the creature’s eyes, a person blazing with light of a thousand different colors.

He looked around him, trying to see this person. Then he moved his hand, and saw that it was him. He looked down at his own arm, and the glow wasn’t there. Only in the eyes of the gray. He knew about auras, that they were a faint electrical field emitted by the nervous system. The gray’s eyes were somehow amplifying its visibility.

As the tall gray came closer, the three short, squat ones buzzed nervously around him.

Okay,” Conner said, “my name is Conner Callaghan and I’m going to do this. I hope.”

Talk to us in your head. Form the words in your mind, but don’t speak them aloud. We will be more easily able to hear you, then .

He sounded actually sort of okay. An ultra-precise voice that appeared right in the center of your head, as if you were wearing earphones. He felt for that earbud, but it was gone. “How are you doing that?”

I can’t hear you!

“WHAT—no. Uh…” How do you do this?

I don’t know. You’re the only person we’ve ever managed it with. With the others, we have to use pictures. They can’t hear us talking .

He was quite close now, so close that Conner could see that he had faint, white hair on his head and a wrinkled face.