The Grays

by Whitley Strieber

  As she stepped forward they turned into two great vultures, black, their red and terrible eyes glaring, their huge beaks open, their wings spread in warning.

  A scream pealed out of her, totally involuntary, and she jumped away—only to feel something leap on her back. It held her arms down with an iron grip, its legs pressed against her hips. She could hear it breathing, an absolutely regular sound, like some sort of machine.

  Frantically, she projected an image of herself on her knees, then went down as best she could. She made an image of herself as a little girl.

  The two vultures postured, screaming, their wings spread wide.

  She projected an image of a beautiful garden, then of she and Adam sitting together, then of Adam with his head in her lap—imaginary, of course, she’d never seen him so close.

  One of the grays before her became itself again. The other turned into an enormous hooded cobra, coiled against the wall, its head raised a good four feet off the floor, the hood extended, its tongue licking the air.

  Then the one that had grabbed her disappeared.

  As she had at first with Adam, she sat down, closed her eyes, and cleared her mind. She brought a long-ago trip to the seaside to mind, the blue waves, the smell of suntan oil, the seagulls crying. “It’s okay,” she said, “I know you’re scared. I’m scared, too. But Adam is my friend. I love Adam.” She opened her hands on her knees. “I want to help you.”

  The cobra swayed. The other gray stared at her. The one behind her slid its long hands around her neck.

  She made an image of Adam again, then of the ruined facility, then of Wilkes shooting at her, then of her running through along an alley. She fired these off fast, one after another.

  The cobra struck at her—and was suddenly a gray again, hanging in midair before her. She fought to quell her terror. The gray disappeared, but not completely. The three of them were racing around her, moving so fast through the air that they were blurs.

  She got an image of Adam running, then rising into the sky in a shaft of shimmering light.

  In return, she made an image of Adam in the light, then of herself in a coffin. She imagined Mike Wilkes closing the coffin with a bang.

  Then she said, “Take me with you,” and imagined herself in a shaft of light, going up.

  The blurring movement stopped. The condo suddenly seemed empty. Then she saw, in her mind’s eye, Mike’s Phaeton pulling up down front. He was here.

  He was coming—but they were helping her! She blanked her mind as completely as she could.

  Immediately, she saw a satellite photo of a small community, a big light in a field behind it. Then an image of a little boy, not the one Adam had shown her, but another child, and Adam was standing behind him. Then Adam stepped forward and went into the child. For a moment, they were superimposed on one another, then the child threw his head back and got this look on his face of ecstasy . . . or was he screaming? When he was quiet again, his eyes were like two headlights, with fire glowing out of them.

  The vision was replaced by another one of Mike, this time in the lobby waiting for the elevator.

  She made an image of him blowing her brains out, which caused something to happen, a feeling of movement, in fact, of rushing.

  When she opened her eyes, the world was a blur. Then she saw the city wheeling below her, then the sky, its hard winter-blue glowing, then she heard a great, crashing noise and a building rushed up toward her.

  She stopped, there were water noises—and a man was sitting in front of her. He stared up at her, his eyes bulging. “WHAT IN HELL?”

  She wasn’t in her apartment, she was in a men’s room, in a closed stall, face to face with a guy sitting on a toilet. She stared down at him. He covered his midriff with his hands.

  “Get out of here,” he rasped. “Get out!”

  “Sorry, uh, sorry, I took a wrong turn.”

  She opened the stall and left the men’s room as fast as she could. Behind him, she heard him yell, “What the fuck? The fuck! Hey!”

  She was in the Greyhound station. Thank you, she said in her mind, thank you from the bottom of my heart.

  She hurried to the ticket window, bought a ticket for $25.50 cash and immediately got on the waiting bus, which was due to leave in four minutes. The windows were tinted, which was good. There were already a number of other passengers, so she felt at least somewhat safe—as long as the guy in the men’s room wasn’t going to Dayton, that is.

  They had rescued her, those weird, fierce little beings, the only grays she’d ever even glimpsed except Adam. They had been waiting for her there in order to save her.

  It was just awesome. Beings from another world were involved with her and they wanted her safe, and now she really began to feel better, because they were not about to be thwarted by Mike Wilkes.

  They had taken her in one of their vehicles, they must have. It had seemed—well, like flying, and it had been so damn wonderful because it had saved her life, and she began to laugh and cry at the same time.

  When she opened her eyes an old man was right in her face. “How’d you do that?” he asked.

  “Excuse me?”

  “You got in my damn toilet.”

  She thought quickly. There were other passengers around. “Sir, please.”

  “No, she come in my toilet. Outta nowhere! She come in my toilet.”

  “I don’t know what’s going on,” she said.

  The driver came back. “Sir, you’ll need to take a seat or get off the bus.”

  “I was sittin’ there mindin’ my own business and all of a sudden, wham! How’d you do that?”

  The grays obviously did not know the difference between ladies’ and men’s rooms. They’d dropped her in a place from which she could emerge without suspicion. Except, it had been the wrong one.

  The driver got the old guy seated toward the front, and warned him against returning to the back of the bus. He’d just have to live with what he’d seen.

  As the bus started off, Lauren leaned back and closed her eyes, her whole body filling with a delicious relief. “You helped me,” she whispered, “thank you for helping me.”

  An old lady smiled at her. “He helps me, too,” she said. “Jesus helps us all, isn’t it wonderful?”

  “Wonderful,” she said, “really, really wonderful.”

  She had a couple hundred dollars in her wallet, so she would not leave a paper trail. As far as her apartment and possessions were concerned, until this situation was brought under control, she was not going near them again.

  If Mike had the backing of the Air Force, then she couldn’t escape anyway, could she, no matter what she did? So this was the best course of action. She would surface at Wright-Pat and hope his powers were limited.

  The bus was running a bit early, so she found herself presenting her regular Air Force ID at one of the guard stations of the gigantic base before eight in the evening. She was directed to the Wright-Patterson Inn, where she obtained a room. Rather than waste time and take risk, she at once called the Law Enforcement Unit and reported Colonel Michael Wilkes’s assault with intent to kill on her person. She stated her location and that she was slightly injured due to a blow to the face.

  She then went to the unit and filled out a complaint against Wilkes, getting more and more furious at him as she did so. The man had shot at a fellow officer. If she could manage it, she would see him in that secret Air Force detention facility he was always talking so much about, where they kept all the crooks with high-level clearances. Sonofabitch.

  One thing at least: she would no longer be working for him, because his operation was over. No more Adam, no more detail. Great, as far as she was concerned. She’d had it with the whole mess. Let her get back into procurement, anything but this.

  But they’d told her, three years ago, that there was no exit.

  An Air Police captain came over to her. He was carrying her complaint form. “You’re Colonel Lauren Glass?”

  �
�Yes.”

  “Lady, Colonel Glass is a KIA.”

  “A KIA?”

  “She died yesterday in a facility fire in another city, and I want to know what this is supposed to be about.”

  Her heart missed a beat. KIA? If he got that to stick, she was outside the context of the whole military infrastructure. No chance of getting him up on charges, no ability to use Air Force facilities or appeal for protection.

  “Ma’am, I’m gonna need to ID you.”

  Did she have her credentials? Yes! She fumbled her wallet out of her purse, handed the card to him. “Excuse me,” he said, taking it.

  She made images of herself with a gun to her head, of herself lying in a coffin, but the grays did not respond. It was the range issue, again. Did they even know where she was?

  She heard a car stop outside the guard station. She went to the front and looked out the window. An awful coldness crept into her gut as Colonel Robert Langford’s tall form got out and headed her way.

  Him! She had to run. She whirled. The desk officer was watching her, his eyes narrow. Behind him was another door. She strode across the room, passing the sergeant’s counter.

  “That’s off-limits, Colonel,” he said.

  She broke into a run and got out the door. Where to go now? Ted’s apartment was on base, but it was a good mile away. She took off down a sidewalk, heading toward a big hangar. At least there would be people around. At least when they got her, there would be someone to remember.

  Then she saw a general’s jet sitting on the tarmac, its engines turning over. The stairs were down, and two officers were talking at their base. The plane was either landing or taking off.

  She took a chance and went over to it. “This isn’t General Martin’s plane, is it?” she asked.

  “General Cerner.”

  “Finally!” As she went aboard, they barely glanced at her, then returned to their conversation.

  There were three officers in the plane, a full-bird colonel, a major, and the general. “Sir,” she said saluting, “Colonel Glass. I need an urgent hitch to D.C. It’s classified, sir, national security.”

  He looked up from his seat. “I’m reading a lotta levels of bullshit in what you just said, lady.”

  “Sir, it’s extremely urgent.”

  “Who’s your commanding officer?”

  “Sir, I’m not at liberty to tell you that, but I can commandeer this aircraft.”

  “Don’t give me that kind of guff. I’ve been in this Air Force a while, girlie. But what the hell, fellas, who wouldn’t want to take boobs like these to thirty-thousand feet?”

  She swallowed her outrage, managed to construct a seductive smile.

  Then she noticed something. He wasn’t looking at her. In fact, his eyes were practically glazed over with fear.

  She turned—and there stood Colonel Langford with a pistol in his hand. “We’ll take care of this,” he said.

  “Be my guest,” the general replied.

  “What in hell is going on?” the major asked.

  “A prisoner is being taken into custody,” Langford snarled. “Come on, Miss Jacobs.” He glanced past her. “She’s not even Air Force. She’s pulled this hitch trick for the last time.”

  “My name is Lauren Glass,” she said as he marched her out of the cabin. “I am a colonel and I’ve been listed as a KIA. I am alive, General, remember that when you read her obit, Colonel Lauren Glass is alive!”

  “Don’t even think about running,” Langford said when they reached the tarmac. “I’ll have the Air Police on your tail in a matter of seconds.”

  She walked ahead of him.

  “You’re a problem,” he said, “a very serious problem.”

  She felt the gun in her back. So the stories were true. Black ops had their own special way of solving problems, and Lauren Glass, as the colonel had just said, was a problem. She thought, with a curious sort of detachment, that she had reached her last hours of life. It was a sickening, trapped moment, and yet oddly peaceful.

  She had avoided marriage, and now she regretted that. She’d never felt a child in her belly, nor the pain of giving birth. She regretted that, too. It was so very odd, this feeling. Not awful at all. The end of all responsibility, the end of the need to run.

  Too bad the grays couldn’t help her now. She tried sending images of her with Langford’s gun in her face, but nothing came back. Too far away.

  She wondered if he would kill her here at Wright-Pat, or take her somewhere else. Maybe it was even an official killing. Probably it was. So there’d be some stark room somewhere, and a steel coffin waiting. “I’m ready,” she said. If he was planning to move her, maybe there would be a chance to escape. She might feel oddly peaceful, but if she could get away, she sure as hell would.

  “It’s going to be easy, then?”

  “What choice do I have? You’ve got me.”

  “Yes,” he said, “I do.”

  SIXTEEN

  THE MOMENT HE HAD REALIZED that he’d lost not only Adam, but also the two handlers, Mike had raced back to Washington. There was only one way to fire somebody in an organization this secret. Nobody was retired. You were either actively involved in the Trust or you were dead . . . and Mike understood and agreed completely. You could not risk even a rumor getting out that mankind was on a death watch, or that there was an organization that planned to save only a precious few, or that any part of the U.S. government was involved with aliens, not when there were such dire threats associated with revealing the secret of their presence.

  Mike explained to Charles Gunn how Andy and Lauren had gotten away.

  “That was damn stupid.”

  “I don’t think—”

  “Andy moved fast, you couldn’t help that. But we’ll pull him in. The empath is another matter, Mike. You were stupid to shoot, but an asshole to miss.”

  “Charles—”

  “Shut up, I’m thinking.”

  “Charles, the gray is at large.”

  His eyes fixed on Mike’s face. His lips opened, then he closed them. He suddenly grabbed a pen and a pad of paper and started writing.

  “Charles?”

  The writing became scratching, then trenching, then he rose up like a tower and ripped the pad to bits. He rushed around the desk and loomed over Mike. “Goddamn you.”

  “Charles—”

  “Goddamn you!” He paced, then. “I have to think.”

  “Do me, Charlie. Get it over with.”

  “Boy, that would be a pleasant way to spend an hour or so, you stupid piece of shit. I’ve defended you, but you are fucking incompetent. You and that fancy house of yours, your theft that I’ve ignored all these years. Not to mention those special passes to the shelters that you’ve given your crook friends.”

  That would wreck him, to withdraw those bribes that were also such superb blackmail. His every defense industry contact would turn against him. He’d be a ruined man. “Charles, those people—some of them are essential—”

  “The hell they are. They’re gone. History. And so are you, Mike. There’s no way you’re getting anywhere near one of the shelters. When this planet’s environment collapses, you’re gonna be in the wind. You live with that, now. You live with that.”

  By which Charles actually meant that he had just allowed Mike to live. He had expected to die in this room, right now.

  Charles asked, “Do you think Glass could be hiding Adam?”

  “I went to her apartment first thing. No sign of anyone there. I think Adam’s been recalled. The moment they realized that we were aware of the child, they pulled the plug.”

  “Because you asked the wrong question.” Charles dropped down behind his desk. “They’ve got us in check, here.”

  “They always have us in check.”

  “We have to locate this child.”

  “It’s in Wilton.”

  “You know that?”

  “Crew said they were signaling him. So he could play his role.”


  “We’ve got to scorch the earth, then. Langford, Glass, Simpson, Crew—they’ve all got to be done. But first, find and kill that child.”

  “We have this Oak Road group with a grand total of six residents under the age of eighteen, so that’s our target. But we can’t approach them directly or we get the grays on us like a bunch of infuriated hornets. The key is to identify the right child without getting so close to him that the grays become aware of us.”

  “We have the children’s test scores? IQ tests?”

  “Unfortunately, the school they all attend doesn’t do IQ tests. Too elitist or too P.C. or some damn thing. They’re all bright kids. Professors’ children.”

  “What about the public schools in the area?”

  “Their gifted and talented programs have a hundred and sixty kids in them. Highest IQ is 160. We don’t know how smart the grays want their poster boy, so they’re a possibility that needs checking.”

  “Let me ask you this, then. Do you have a plan?”

  “I think the child will reveal himself to us.”

  “How?”

  “He’s got to be spectacularly bright. A freak, like.”

  “What if he’s ordinary? We have only that tape to tell us he’s going to be some kind of a genius. Maybe Crew and Simpson knew you were listening. Maybe the tape is a lie.”

  “Then we’re already defeated, Charles.”

  “Do you think that?”

  “I think they’re going to be mighty careful and mighty ferocious. Look what’s riding on him—their whole species. And ours.”

  Charles shrugged. “Don’t tell me you’re disloyal, too.”

  “I’ve been to India, I’ve been to Vietnam, I’ve see the brainless, gobbling hordes of human filth out there. No, I believe in what we’re doing with every cell in my body, Charles. This little band we call the Trust, is the most noble, the most courageous, and the most important organization in human history.”

  Charles gave him a twinkle of a smile. “You know what Stalin did when his little commissars were too eloquent in their praise? He had them shot.”