Whitley Strieber: The Grays

Can you see who’s in it? Lauren asked in his head.

Conner went out of his body again, traveling up to the ceiling… and found that he could go through it… he saw up the legs of people, then went higher, up through the next ceiling. He was on the roof now, and he could see the Keltons lying strapped to their stretchers.

There was another man there, Lauren’s friend, the handsome officer with the mangled hand and the burns.

Then they brought out a fourth man. He had a narrow, careful face and rusty gray hair. He was in agony, his teeth bared, his head turning from side to side as he forced himself not to scream.

He raced back into his body. “It’s him,” he said, “he’s up there.”

“Who?” Lauren asked.

Conner knew what she wanted to know. Your friend .

Lauren burst into tears.

“Conner, what’s the matter with her?” Amy asked.

He shook his head. How could he explain?

“Conner,” Lauren whispered. Then, between their minds, You healed him, didn’t you?

I don’t know .

Amy’s hand slipped toward his—hesitant, trembling a little. He took it. She closed her eyes and leaned her head against his shoulder.

Paulie shook his head. “My sis is a piece of work, buddy.”

They sat side by side on blue plastic seats in the emergency waiting room. She smiled a little, and he saw one of the silver threads running between the two of them. He looked down at it where it disappeared under his shirt. With his free hand, he tried to touch it, but his hand went through it.

He met her eyes, and saw there a sparkle of love and hope. She closed them, and he saw her face change. She threw back her head and laughed, and he put his arm around her.

“Oh, boy,” Paulie said.

“Shut up, little boy,” Amy snapped. She kissed Conner on the cheek and giggled.

Mom and a doctor came out of a double door across the room. The doctor said, “Your dad’s going to be fine.”

Terry went to his feet. Behind the doctor, his parents had also come out. He ran to them, and the family embraced.

Mom sat down beside Conner, and put her arm around him. As he felt the comfort of the two women, his eyes closed.

“He sure goes to sleep fast,” Amy said.

“He’s your little boyfriend,” Paulie said.

“He’s been through a lot,” Katelyn responded, “he’s real tired.”

Behind them, a group of uniformed Air Force personnel ran into the emergency room.

“Who are they?” Paulie asked.

As they hurried through the double doors into the emergency room proper, Lauren saw Rob on his stretcher. Uttering a little cry, she went running to him. She held his face in her hands. He opened his eyes. A weak smile came. “You’re a hell of a sight,” he said, his voice a bare whisper.

She tried to smile. “Is that good or bad?”

“Good, lady. Real good.”

She kissed him then.

“Sir?”

Rob turned his head away from her. “Yes, Major?”

“We’re detailed to detain Colonel Wilkes.”

Lauren said, “Was he in the evac?”

“Yeah,” Rob said faintly. “Oh, yeah.”

AT THAT MOMENT, CHARLES GUNN was half pulling, half carrying Mike down a hallway. He heard voices behind them and went faster, pushing through an alarmed exit door, setting off a steady beeping behind them.

Charles’s TR was there, its hatch glowing with amber light from within. Otherwise it was invisible.

He helped Mike up the ladder, then drew it in behind them. The Air Force officers swarmed out of the hospital exit and began fighting to get into the TR. Charles mercilessly shot one of them, and they all fell back. Leaving Mike in the access tunnel, he slid into the cockpit and hit the stick, causing the fans to whine for a moment as they revved.

Below him, the officers were drawing their guns. He knew how vulnerable the TR was to gunfire, and twisted the flight controls, slamming the power switches all the way down as he did so. The world outside whirled wildly and critical maneuver alarms sounded.

But the hospital spun away below, and the shots that were being fired did no damage. He headed the nose of the craft toward the dark, and was off into the night.

SLEEPING BETWEEN AMY AND HIS mom, Conner dreamed of when the bluets would rise out of the ground along the roadsides and the warblers would come back to Kentucky, and he saw his own backyard going green again, and his dad filling the pool with the garden hose. He dreamed then of the days of summer peace. He woke up a little and murmured, “We’re going to be free, all of us.”

“We are free,” Amy said. “Sort of. Aren’t we?”

“Sort of,” he said. “But there’s a lot more to come.”

But in his heart, he despaired, calling, Come back to me .

Silence continued to be the only response.

“Look here, Conner Callaghan, if you’re gonna be my boyfriend, you have to pretend not to be totally geeky. Can you do that?”

He smiled a little. “I’ll give it a shot.” His eyes fluttered closed and he tried again to find the mind of the collective.

The snow, dark now, slowly covered the body of the Two, and in the ashes of the grain elevator, the curious metal bones of his brothers, also, were dusted with it, deep in the black ruins.

THEY’D COME HOME, HE AND Mom. Dad had to stay at the hospital for a few days. Lauren was with them, and Conner knew that she was going to live here, she had to, he needed her here.

Late that night, Conner lay wide awake, letting his silent tears flow. He was down in his basement room. Mom was in her bedroom upstairs, and in his mind’s eye, he could see her sleeping. Lauren was awake.

He went upstairs. She sat in the living room, sipping from a tall glass.

“Conner!”

“Hi.”

“Can’t sleep?”

“I’m wide awake.”

“Me, too.” She held up her drink. “Want a sip?”

He shook his head. “They make me drink wine at dinner. One of Dad’s many theories. Every time you do that, did you know that you kill about six thousand neurons?”

“I’ve heard that.”

“I need all my neurons.”

“Come sit beside me.” She patted the couch and he came close to her. “Are you scared, Conner?”

“Oh, yes.” He looked out the dark glass doors that opened onto the deck. It was bright outside now, a low moon making the snow shine softly.

Conner .

“I want to just talk, okay? I don’t like to do that mind stuff.”

“I didn’t.”

“Yeah, you did, you said my name.”

Conner .

“I heard that, too, but it’s not me.”

Could it be? But no. He sighed. “My friends are dead.”

“Your friends? The Kelton boy?”

“Yeah, him too. But I mean—you know—the ones we’re not supposed to talk about. I need them, Lauren. I’m lost without them.”

“I feel that way about my friend. He was a gray, but they’re not really monsters at all, they’re full of need and hope, and—” She stopped, looked down at him. He was so small, just an ordinary little kid, narrow shoulders, soft, unfinished face, all promise and potential.

“You miss him, then?”

“Earlier, I could feel him in you, sort of, and that was nice. It was like being home again, a little bit.”

He thought about that. “Boy, if people heard us talking about this stuff, they would think we were weird.”

She sensed that he didn’t want to address the matter of Adam. And why would he? Adam had died for him, and that would be very hard to face. “I’m in the military,” she said. “My friend, he was in his military, sort of. The grays’ military of the spirit. I mean, they have no actual army, as such. In the military, though, we always know that death is part of it. Oh, you don’t think about it, you think about life. But death is part of it.”