The Uninvited

by Clive Harold

  Let's hope nothing odd happens tonight, Pauline thought to herself. In the two weeks since she'd seen that damn light, all manner of weird things had been happening. As well as the television sets overloading, dozens of lightbulbs had exploded

  - sometimes immediately after they were put in - and Billy had lost count of the fuses that had blown in his milk machines. And Layann wasn't the only child claiming to have had frightening experiences. Clinton, of all people, had his own story to tell. Only a few mornings back, he'd come down to breakfast looking quite shaken and claimed to have heard this low-pitched humming outside the window while he was lying in the bath.

  'Noise like a generator,' he'd said, 'but just outside the bathroom window, and then it sort of came through the closed window and filled the room around me. Got me out of the bath in double quick time, I can tell you!'

  He'd laughed at the time, but nervously. He, of all the kids, was the least likely to imagine such a thing. If he said he'd heard such a noise and it behaved in such a way, then that must have been exactly what happened.

  What could it have meant? She shrugged. Heaven knows what any of it meant.

  She turned to Keiron, curious to see why he was so uncommonly quiet.

  'All right, love?' For a moment she thought he was asleep, for he didn't answer. 'Keiron?'

  ‘Hmm... Sorry, Mum... but look at that, up there... I've been watching for ages... can't make it out… what do you make of it...?'

  He was leaning forward now, head craned, frowning. 'Look there...' She followed the direction of his gaze, high up into the night sky. It was back. The light. Hovering in the sky. She bit her lip. Billy and she had decided not to say any-thing to the younger children about the first time she'd seen the light, for fear of worrying them. There was quite enough UFO nonsense being talked about at the time, any-way. It had been going on for three months already, being widely written up in the local press and although they didn't believe in such things, many people in the area, particularly children, had been unnerved by some of the stories. Hadn't even she started wild imaginings about the light, only two weeks earlier?

  'Probably just a star, an aeroplane light or a flare,' she said dismissively, glancing up at it again.

  'Can't be,' muttered Keiron, 'stars don't sway around like that and they aren't that orange colour, nor do aeroplane's lights look like that or behave like that...'

  Pauline knew he was right. It was just like before, she thought, then tutted to herself. She'd be believing those newspaper stories next.

  And what stories! She cast her mind back. Six people had claimed to have seen UFOs in December, and since then - in the three months past - more than fifty people had reported to the police that they'd seen mysterious flying objects in the area. She'd read all the reports in the local papers and there had been so many that one newspaper had even dubbed the area between Broad Haven, Swansea and Mid-Wales, 'The Welsh Triangle'.

  Two schoolboys on their way to a youth club in Haverfordwest and a housewife on her way home from the shops had claimed to have seen a saucer-shaped object, pulsating with green and yellow lights, hovering over an office block in the town centre; the same two children had later claimed to have seen a pulsating blue light in a field near their school that rose quickly into the air as they approached. It had so frightened them that they ran all the way to the local police station and reported it immediately. One of their friends at the same school, on a different morning, told police he'd heard a buzzing or droning noise and had seen a bright silver metallic object hovering over nearby Pembroke.

  He'd told police: 'It had a dome in the middle that was dark grey most of the time, but flashed to a dazzling white every five seconds. It looked like a plate with a burned fried egg on it and around the rim of the plate it had greenish-yellow lights and what seemed to me to be retro-rockets. The plate seemed to be revolving as well. It was quite clear and I had a good view of it.

  Pauline shrugged. Why on earth anybody should believe such childish stories? As Billy had said, they'd probably been reading too many comics. But then again, what happened recently at Broad Haven School was a bit strange. Fourteen children had all claimed to have seen a large, silver saucershaped craft in a field three hundred yards from their school and when their headmaster had interviewed them all separately and asked them to draw what they'd seen, he'd been amazed at the similarities of all the descriptions and drawings. One boy wrote: 'It was flattish, with ten or eleven windows and a door with a runway leading from it. It was partly hidden in a clump of trees. Shaun and David saw it first and came running in saying that they'd seen something strange, so we all went up to the field to have a look. We all saw something silver and disc-shaped. David and

  Tudor said they saw a silver figure, but we didn't...

  'Their stories were the same and have remained the same,' their headmaster had since said. 'Even at my age and normally sceptical, I have to admit I think they saw something. I don't believe that children of junior school age are capable of playing such a sophisticated prank...'

  Pauline sighed to herself. Billy and she had laughed long and loud at many of the earlier UFO reports from children, but that report was definitely a bit strange.

  They'd both dismissed it, to begin with, as being a case of mistaken identity, but it had made them wonder. Only a few days after the children's sighting, their stories had been given a curiously back-handed piece of confirmation when two of the school's canteen staff saw what they thought was a silver sewage lorry in the same field, but when Mr Llewhellin - the headmaster - had gone to investigate he found that the field was so muddy it would have been totally inaccessible to any vehicle. The two women had said they'd seen a figure climb into the 'object' and watched it move across the field. Not only that, but other adults were also backing up the children's stories with stories of their own. Another woman in the area had reported to the police that she was out walking in Broad Haven when something silvery in the sky caught her eye and she 'stopped, looked and could clearly see a large flying object, oval in shape with a slight dome on the top of it, hovering over the town'. Then again, two company directors driving along the Newcastle-Carmarthen road had reported to the police that they'd seen 'a huge, cigarshaped machine, at least twenty foot long, cross our path a hundred yards ahead. It was so low it would have taken the top off a double decker bus. It made no sound and we thought it was going to crash. We braced ourselves for an explosion, but there was none. It seemed to come down in a field, but when we stopped and looked there was nothing there. We'd never seen anything like it in our lives before. It had no wings, tail fins, or protrusions, how it flew at all is beyond us...’

  All right, Pauline mused to herself, so it was very strange that so many people - prominent people many of them - had all reported seeing similar inexplicable flying objects at the same time in the same area, but there must, surely, be a logical explanation for it all, just as there must be a logical explanation about the light she had seen - and now this one, still hanging in the night sky, glowing above them.

  She pulled the car into the right hand turning at the last road junction to home, and accelerated down the final three-mile stretch of gloomy country lane that would take them to Ripperstone Farm. She glanced up at the light. Strange. Logically, if it was hovering in the sky, as it had seemed to be, it should now be behind them. But it wasn't. It was now dead ahead. It must have started moving in their direction.

  Keiron was now excitedly pointing at it. 'Look, look, he was saying, 'it's getting really bright’.

  'I can't look, love, I'm trying to drive, aren't I?'

  She was getting irritated now. Tiredness, she reasoned. 'I told you, it's probably just a star, that's all…

  'Can't be, ma, it's moving now - quite fast...'

  'Aeroplane, then?'

  'No, couldn't be. It's much too fast, too bright...' 'Well I don't know, Kei. Never mind what it is. We're nearly home and you'd better get the twins' things to-gether,' she said, anxious j
ust to get home, get unloaded and get settled in for the night.

  But Keiron was insistent. Suddenly he grabbed her arm. The old car swerved momentarily, the headlights weaving erratically across the road, illuminating first one hedge, then the other.

  'Keiron,' she snapped, 'that's ENOUGH. PLEASE. Don't be so daft...' Keiron was paying her no attention, though. He was pointing again at the light with one hand, the other one gripping the dashboard.

  'But ma, look... it is moving and even faster now... it's coming down out of the sky really fast... towards us, isn't it?' Pauline looked up to where the light had been. Keiron was right. The light had moved from high up in the sky in front of them, to quite low on the horizon - and it was getting brighter. That would mean it was coming closer. They were driving directly towards it.

  Despite the glare, she could make it out quite clearly as it sped out of the darkness at them; an orange, phosphorescent globe of light, no more than twelve feet off the road, illuminating the top of the hedges on each side of it as it raced along the road towards them. It looked to be only a few hundred yards away. 'Ma, ma, what is it? What do you reckon it is?' Keiron tugged desperately at her sleeve and the car swerved again.

  'Keiton, will you STOP that,' she snapped at him. It was useless. Now he'd turned and woken up the twins in the back of the car, telling them to look at what was happening.

  'If it doesn't change course, it's going to crash into us,' he was saying.

  'Ma, do something...' ' Keiron, shut up. Now look what you've done,' said Pauline, glancing in the rear view mirror, to see both Layann and Joann, in the dimness of the back seat, looking wide-eyed ahead of them. Her eyes went back to the road, where - just beyond the probing beams of the headlights, out in the blackness of the night - the orange glow was getting bigger. Keiron was right. Much further and much faster and it whatever it was would collide with them. She accelerated, hoping and praying it would fly over them and past them. Keiron, silent now, was clenching the dashboard with both hands, and glancing nervously at her. Both twins were asking her what was happening. She wished she knew. And still the light came at them. She clenched the steering wheel tightly in anticipation of the impact, but the ball of light - flashing along at tree height– sped over them, momentarily dazzling her and lighting the car up as it did so.

  'Dear God, what was that? What's happening?' she heard herself say. 'Keiron, what happened to it? Did it crash?' Keiron turned quickly in his seat and looked out of the rear view window.

  'It didn't, ma,' he, was saying, 'it's still there going at a fantastic speed away from us, it's already a couple of hundred yards away... no... no... wait... it’s turning, it's turning... Ma, it's corning back, very low, along the road... it's following us...' Pauline bit her lip. Thank God we're nearly home, she thought to herself. Got to get home. How far was it? Not far, surely? She accelerated. The old car bumped and splashed down the thin, winding hill. Only a few miles to the little lane that led off the road the last half-mile to the farm.

  'Keiron, where is it now?'

  No answer. Keiron evidently hadn't heard her, the twins were now crying and fretting so loudly in the back.

  'Keiron,' she shouted, 'the light, where is it?'

  Keiron at last replied, his voice subdued with fear: 'Right behind us, Ma. It’s right behind us... coming up on your side...' She didn't need telling. Suddenly the rear view mirror picked up the image of the fiery orange globe, momentarily dazzling her. Then it was gone for a split second, then back again, this time pulsating right ne~ to the window beside her, lighting up the side of the car. She clenched the steering wheel still tighter, fighting to keep the cumbersome car on a true course down the hill, the headlights now flashing everywhere, first to one hedge, then the other. And still the light was to her right, just out of vision. She glanced sideways. Like a gleaming, orange football, dazzling bright, a white, torch-like beam of light shining down from underneath it.

  But what was it? What was it trying to do? The twins, now screaming in fright, were leaning over her seat, clutching her around the shoulders: 'Ma, Ma, what is it? Please do something, please make it stop,' they shouted over and over.

  'Keiron, get the twins off me. Get them to sit down,' she instructed him. He didn't move, nor did he seem to hear, sitting motionless in the seat next to her, fists clenched, head bowed. The twins began grabbing at her more hysterically and the car began swerving dangerously across the road. She began sobbing herself. Please God let them get home. Then there was the turning. Only half a mile. But wait. The headlights were going dim. Can't see properly. They're failing. Just turned the corner safely. Please God let the lights last for long enough to get them down the lane to home.

  She glanced to her right. The globe of light was still there right next to her, racing along parallel to the car, pacing them. She gritted her teeth against her sobbing.

  They had to make it. But the lights had failed now, they'd gone completely. Blackness ahead. Completely black. And inside the car, darkness except for the orange glow from the light. And now... what was that? No power. No accelerator. The car was dead. The light was stopping them. Dear God, it mustn't. Not now. Not so close. They could free-wheel from here, it was only a hundred yards. Hold the car straight... there are the lights from the farm. Nearly there.

  She started crying openly, the tears blurring her vision. Billy, please be there. The car was slowing, stopping, had stopped, but where was the light? It was suddenly so dark, so still. Had it gone? It wasn't next to her window. But wait. That glow that faint orange glow... where was it coming from? It wasn't anywhere around the car... it must be overhead... but why? What was it waiting for?

  No matter. They were home. Must get the kids out of the car and inside. They weren't safe here. 'Kieron, get over the passenger seat and into the back and get the twins out as fast as you can,' she called over the children's screams, 'I'll follow...

  Keiron was motionless, still trembling, head bowed. She shook him into action, pushing him over the seat, then helping him to prise the twins off from around her neck, where they still clung. Still crying, the three children fell out of the rear door of the car in panic, Pauline following them into the darkness, stumbling after them, urging them on, never looking back. On and on, down the last remaining yards of the dark lane, up the garden path, into the warm light of the farmhouse porch.

  'BILLY. Open the door. Open it. Please. Please hurry... 'Bloody hell, love, what on earth's the matter? What's happened to you?'

  Billy looked at his family in bewilderment when he opened the door, Clinton behind him He took Pauline in his arms. Keiron grabbed him and started sobbing. The twins, weeping uncontrollably, clung to their eldest brother for comfort.

  'Clint, take Keiron and the twins into the front room,' ordered Billy, then turned and looked into Pauline's tear-stained eyes. 'Now tell me slowly, love. What the hell's going on here? What's happened?'

  'Oh God, Billy... I don't know, some light, some bright ball of light came down at us out of the sky, nearly hit us, then followed us all the way home... it stopped the car, hung over us... it's still there... you've got to do something...

  The words came out in a torrent and she began shaking. Billy nestled her to him and took her gently into the front room and sat her down next to the fire with the children.

  'Help the kids, love. They're worse off than you. I shan't be a minute. I'll just go outside with Clinton and see what's happening.'

  The two men walked quickly out into the night, Billy frowning and shaking his head incredulously, Clinton hurrying along behind. 'Damn me, what's going on now? Lights following people home? I've never heard anything so daft...'

  Clinton was unconvinced. Like his father, he knew Pauline was no person to panic in the way she had done. Nor was she one to frighten easily. Many a time she'd walked the land around the farm on errands for Billy at the dead of night, in total darkness, armed only with a small torch. She didn't spook easily. To be as frightened as she was, something
must have happened...

  They turned the corner at the end of the garden path and started up the lane. A couple of yards. Then stopped. The silhouetted shape of the car was already visible in the darkness, bathed as it was in a ray of white light emanating from the orange globe of light that hung motionless over it.

  'My God, look...' Billy's words hung in the air.

  Clinton grabbed his father's arm. 'Dad... what is it?' Billy shook his head and fell back a few paces in surprise, further shielding Clinton. 'Damndest thing I ever saw. I've no idea...

  'What'll we do?' Before Billy could answer, the light moved suddenly. The beam of light vanished, the globe itself streaked off at an angle, high up over the house, across the fields behind him and down in the direction of the cliff edge in the distance. And gone.

  The two men looked at each other, their expressions reflecting their disbelief in what they'd seen. It was now pitch black again. Billy fumbled in his pocket for his torch, switched it on and they followed its beam to the stranded car. Neither spoke. The only noise was the crunching of gravel beneath their feet. Billy tried the engine and the lights. Dead. Together they rolled the car down to the front of the house, where they left it, before going inside to check on the rest of the family.

  Pauline and the children were sitting in silence, tears tamed and bewildered, but calmer now. Billy told them that they, too, had seen the globe, but that it had left. Clinton went into the kitchen to make a plate of sandwiches and some cocoa for them all. After a while, relative composure had settled over them as they tried to comfort one another by explaining away what they'd all seen. A trick of light, surely? Impossible. Something else? What else? No explanation seemed to fit. But no matter. It was over. The light had gone. They were together, at home, safe. That was all that mattered.