The Grays

“I don’t know!”

“Dan, I’m an orphan to the violence in my family, and you to the neglect in yours and, Dan, nobody but another orphan can heal either of us, this is why we’re together. But you—you’ve taken something from us, and it is profound, Dan, because trust has a different meaning for people who suffered from betrayed childhoods.”

“It wasn’t over the tenure. It was—” He shook his head. “Oh, my love, it was like some demon flew in and sweated us with his fire. I think, being so tired, so surprised and relieved—I just suddenly found myself in her arms.”

“Don’t tell me about it! For God’s sake, Danny, have some mercy!”

He slumped yet deeper into the couch. He looked so tired, so sunken, nothing at all like the rippling, robust husband she adored. Had adored. He looked like somebody who’d fallen victim to a vampire, shadowy about the eyes, gray of skin.

Her stomach had grown tight and sour with fear, her own skin was so cold she shuddered. This had been her rock, this marriage, in its honesty and the richly sensual capsule of its love. But how could she let him touch her now? How could she bear it?

“Momma, what, exactly, is wrong?”

“Conner!”

“Because something is and I need to know.”

“Conner, please.”

He came into the room. “You two are fighting and I want to know why.”

Figures appeared on the deck, looming up out of the dark, flashlights bobbing.

Conner went to the door. “This is a chance for me. Don’t wreck this.”

Dan got up, started to kiss Katelyn on the cheek, wisely thought better of it, and greeted the Keltons.

“You need to see this, folks,” affable John said. “It really is genuinely odd.”

“It’s not what it seems,” Dan said. “It’s explainable, trust me.”

“Dad, it’s not,” Conner said. “That’s the whole point!”

Dan went into the kitchen and picked up the phone. Chris answered on the third ring. “Have I woken you up at nine-fifteen, old man?”

“We were out with the ’scope. It’s a good night for the Crab Nebula.”

“Speaking of nebulas, the Kelton clan has arrived with what’s probably a pretty nebulous video of that prank.”

“Prank?”

“The affair of the fiery balloon.”

“That could be historic footage.”

“How so?”

“You saw somebody in the field, buddy. And then you didn’t. I think that somebody was an alien.”

He had indeed seen somebody. It was also further support for the prank theory, but they could get to that later. “When you come, you might think about bringing some spirits. Mon femme has stripped our bar.” He hung up the phone, then returned to the living room where the crowd had surrounded the gigantic TV. “We gather round the campfire,” he said, “and see shapes in the sparks. And thus the mythologizing begins.” He sat down. “The Jeffers will be here directly.”

Paulie Warner burst in from the kitchen, followed by his parents and then Chris and Nancy. The energy in the room exploded as the two boys excitedly traded speculations. “It’s the grays,” Conner yelled, “they’re doing an operation right here at Bell!”

“Okay, Conner, sure,” Paulie said.

Terry said, “What we actually have is some unexplained video.”

“Edited,” Dan added. “Most carefully, I’m sure.”

“Not really,” John Kelton said, his voice sharp with annoyance. “It’s actually just pulled out of the camera. Not edited at all. There’s no reason to edit it.”

“We copied it onto a DVD,” Terry said as he dropped the gleaming disk into the player’s open tray. “Beyond that, you’re seeing what the camera saw.”

The player absorbed the disk. This was followed by blackness, then a couple of flashes.

“Fascinating,” Dan said.

“Just wait,” John snapped.

There was a sound of gasping, then crunching. “That’s us running,” Conner said.

“You were really there?”

“Conner was there,” Dan told Paulie.

Another flash, then a blur. Dan was beginning to think that this might be pretty minimal when suddenly the screen filled with light. And with screaming—as terrible, as powerful, as it had been the moment it happened. Silence fell. Paulie sat close to Conner, Dan was pleased to notice. He heard his own voice shouting, then saw himself and Conner in the light of the thing.

“Conner, you were right there!” Paulie whispered.

It was the eeriest thing that Dan had ever seen. Two faint seams were present, one running the length of the object, the other around its center. Behind the thing, something seemed to be moving in the light, almost as if it was climbing out of an opening that was concealed by the object’s bulk.

“There’s your culprit,” Dan said. “Nancy, be prepared to ID a student who needs disciplining.”

The object rose a bit and seemed to shimmer.

The woman’s voice, which had been screaming and then silent, now cried out more clearly and a cold horror shot through Dan as powerfully and unexpectedly as a lightning bolt from a silent sky. “My God,” he said— whispered.

“What? What, Dan?” Conner was pulling at him.

“Don’t miss this,” Jimbo said.

In the flash of a single frame, the object disappeared leaving behind it the fleeting shot of a figure, barely visible in the dark. The figure seemed to turn, but it all happened so quickly that you could see little. There was silence, blackness. Dan heard his own voice say that he didn’t think they were alone.

“It is the grays,” Conner shouted, jumping to his feet. “I told you, Paulie, it’s the grays!”

“Yeah, you’re right,” Paulie said. “I gotta go to the john.” He headed out of the room.

Dan hardly heard them. His mind was reeling. Because Marcie had been involved, he had recognized her voice in that last scream. But what could it mean? Had she pulled the prank? Maybe she’d gone insane. It would fit with the bizarre seduction, maybe even vindicate him in Katelyn’s eyes… eventually. That was going to be one hell of a siege.

But then he thought, what if it wasn’t a prank? What if Chris and Conner were right, and some sort of genuine anomaly was unfolding? Perhaps he and Marcie had both been traumatized by it. Psychological trauma was well known to drive people to sexual activity. It even had a popular name: battlefield syndrome. He was confused and, frankly, afraid. He wished he hadn’t drunk all that booze at the Peep. He felt lousy, his head was pounding, and now he had this bizarre, impossible thing to consider.

“Boys, can you slo-mo the last little part?” Chris asked. “The figure?”

Terry stabbed a couple of times at the remote, and the figure appeared again, frozen, its back to the camera.

“Let me juice the contrast,” Terry muttered.

The scene became lighter, the figure more clear.

“Is that a balloon?” Katelyn asked.

“It’s the head, Mom.”

As Terry shuttled the image forward frame by frame, the figure turned in short jerks, until its face was visible in a blurred three-quarters view.

Total silence fell as every person there reacted to the image. It was not clear, far from it, but anybody could tell that this was no disguise and no inflated toy. The one fully visible eye was black and slanted, gleaming. It gave the creature a breathtaking look of menace. The lower part of the face was complex with wrinkles, like a very, very old human face might be, the face of a man deeply etched by the trials of his time. There was the tiniest suggestion