The Grays

“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.

Chris lunged suddenly, slapped the kitchen table with his open hand.

The sound silenced them all.

“I—uh—there was a fly.”

“In February?” Nancy asked.

“No, there wasn’t a fly. Something moved. I saw it out of the corner of my eye. A cat—maybe a cat… over there by the pantry. Could a cat have gotten in here?”

“Stranger things have happened,” Dan said.

“Obviously,” Katelyn said as she got a bottle of wine from the cabinet where they were kept, “just an hour ago.” She looked at the bottle. “Will our five-dollar cabernet beat your six-dollar merlot?”

Dan checked the pantry. The familiar neat rows of canned goods stood untouched on the shelves, there if they ever got snowed in. He shook a box of cereal Conner had left open, re-rolled the wax paper inside, and closed it.

As he turned away, he felt something—like somebody’s hand had brushed against his left ear. He fumbled for the light, turned it on.

There was nobody in here but him.

Then a pain like a blowtorch flashed through the ear. He gasped, cried out, stifled the cry.

Katelyn had the chair in her hand. He staggered toward it.

“Dan?”

“I’m okay!” He fell into the chair. He could do nothing else, he was in agony. “Jesus, Jesus,” he said, trying not to gasp, trying not to seem to be in pain and failing utterly.

“What the hell?” Chris said.

“It’s my ear,” he breathed. “Oh, Jesus!”

Katelyn looked at it.

“Whoa, that smarts. Christ.”

“It looks fine.”

“Oh, man. It must be—” He tried to get up, failed. He was too dizzy. “Am I having a stroke? Does anybody know the symptoms?”