The Grays

by Whitley Strieber

  “Jesus,” Dan said.

  “That’s Manrico,” Katelyn said. “That’s the Keltons’ dog.”

  “Conner, what’s happening?” Lauren asked.

  Conner took a step back.

  The dog jumped off the roof, came toward him.

  “Don’t look in his eyes,” Conner said.

  Manrico started toward them.

  As he had with the people who had gotten like this, Conner tried to send Manrico calming thoughts, but the dog kept leaping through the snow, coming right toward him.

  At that moment, a deer—a graceful, careful doe—came out of the woods. Her appearance was so unexpected, her form so exquisite, that even the onrushing Manrico paused and turned.

  She had great, soft eyes and long lashes, and a face like a deep song. She walked forward, her narrow legs pushing aside snow that gleamed gold in the sun’s long, final rays. Then she sounded, the vaporous whistling that signals alarm in that peaceable race.

  Manrico’s ears pointed toward her. She came closer, her delicate nose questing in the air, her eyes as calm and dark as midnight lakes.

  The Two felt sure that the dog could be drawn away, now that the transmitter was no longer broadcasting its order to kill. He did not understand that the animal’s savagery would not end. While he knew he could not control the dog’s mind, he could distract it the way he was doing, by appearing to be a succulent deer. He went closer, projecting every single detail of a female deer that he could recall.

  Conner’s voice said, Be careful.

  The Two went closer yet.

  “Is that really a deer?” Lauren asked.

  “Of course it is,” Terry said.

  Conner took Lauren’s hand.

  The deer came closer. Manrico looked from her back to Conner. He growled softly, a deadly sound. The deer sounded again, then began limping as a mother deer will when her fawn is threatened.

  She was close now, just beyond the fence. Manrico’s haunches stiffened, his ears pricked forward, he whined a little. She sounded again and limped, lurching in the snow. That did it: he leaped the fence, barking and howling as he reached her and tore into her throat.

  She screamed, then, and suddenly she was not a deer at all, she was a gray and in terrible trouble, being torn apart by the maddened dog. It leaped away from Manrico, one arm dangling, its head wobbling horribly.

  Conner screamed and ran for the fence, but Lauren tackled him. “No!”

  Sparks like fluid began spewing out of the gray. As the dog screamed and twisted against itself, the gray whirled faster and faster, until it became a dervish of sparks and flying fire.

  Then it was gone, nothing left but a melted area of snow, some smoking earth, and the seared body of Manrico.

  “Get in the car!” Lauren shouted.

  They did, but they could go nowhere. “We have to change that tire,” Lauren said from the backseat, where she’d gotten in with Conner. “You three stay here, I’ll do it.”

  “I’ll help,” Conner said.

  “No,” Lauren said.

  “I’ll help!”

  Lauren responded: No, it’s too dangerous.

  Why are you so good at this?

  I’ve been in training for years to be your teacher.

  He looked up at her and frowned. “I find teachers extremely boring.”

  I won’t be.

  Mike was still out there somewhere, maybe incapacitated but maybe not. She could not expose Conner to the long, clear sightlines that led back to that concealing wood.

  Overhead, a dark helicopter appeared, a red cross on its belly. Katelyn and Lauren got out and waved and shouted, but it set down behind the trees, in the clearing where Rob and dead Jimbo Kelton lay.

  Terry Kelton, who had refused to get in the car, began to cry, standing on the roadside, holding his head in agony.

  Another car appeared, coming from town.

  “Careful,” Katelyn said.

  “Conner,” Lauren whispered. “Can you tell?”

  “How can he possibly tell?” Katelyn snapped.

  Conner closed his eyes and found that he could go racing down the snowy road and look into the car. It’s Paulie. They’re okay.

  Thank God.

  The grays made me like this?

  Yes, they did.

  It’s never gonna end, is it?

  She smiled at him. “Do you want it to?”

  He met her eyes, and she found it hard, very hard to look at him. She missed Adam.

  Conner suddenly got out of the car.

  “Conner!”

  “It’s okay, Lauren.”

  The Warners pulled up behind them.

  Conner started to walk toward their minivan.

  “No,” Lauren said, coming up to him, putting her hand on his shoulder. “No.”

  “Listen,” he said, “it’s okay. They’re not—not affected.” He whispered to her. “Let me go.”

  She released him.

  He got into the van.

  “You missed it, didn’t you?” Paulie asked.

  “I got a picture on my phone.”

  “Mom! Dad! I told you and told you, they missed the riot!” He regarded Conner, his face alight. “There was a whole huge riot in the town and the National Guard’s there in Humvees, and it’s gonna be on the network news. It was totally incredible, and you missed it, lil’ fella. Momma had to take you home.”

  Katelyn leaned in the window. “Dan needs a hospital, we’ve got to take him to Berryville right now.”

  FAR ABOVE, A SMALL SILVER dot glittered in the rising light of evening. The worn space inside the little craft where the Three Thieves had lived through so many long ages now was empty. The iron bedsteads where Katelyn and Dan had had their souls mingled, where Marcie had been laid, and Conner, and so many thousands of others over the centuries, stood still and silent.

  As if it was alive—which it might be—the little vehicle turned round and round, looking for some place to go. The collective, at a loss, tried to understand how to replace the last triad. But who could do the work of another without training? Their minds were not flexible enough.

  There was no place for the little machine, nobody to replace its triad. It hung there, left empty in the sky.

  CONNER SAT QUIETLY BETWEEN PAULIE and Amy in the van’s third row of seats. In front of them, Mom and Lauren helped his dad.

  He could feel his dad suffering, could hear whispers of fear coming from the implant that connected the two of them, but he intended to be very, very careful in listening to what it broadcast, to use it only if it was absolutely necessary. He wanted his dad’s love, not his fear.

  As he listened to the humming of the tires and the soft voices of the adults, and Terry’s miserable sobs, he kept feeling an absence in him, and the more he felt it, the more he came to understand that it was the absence of the collective. For a little while, being part of it had felt like a kind of music in him, and he knew that he could conduct that music, could make it bright and great and true.

  One day, perhaps, he would be strong enough to reach the collective on his own, to join it to his mind. Until he could, though, he would be in the most profound sense blind.

  He needed the Three Thieves, they were woven into his being, part of him. Without them, he could feel the vague, distant presence of the collective calling to him, Conner, Conner, but he could not answer, not without the mind of the Three Thieves to amplify and relay his response.

  Conner swept out of his body and through the snowy woods, following a glowing silver wire that connected him to a burned place near the Niederdorfer’s fence, where lay a pitiful little mess of rags and sticks and empty black eyes.

  Wake up, he said in the secret air of the mind, come back to me.

  There was stirring in the snow, but only a little, for the damage the Two had endured was very great.

  A sentence came to Conner, Or ever the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken . . . and he knew that it was the love wri
tten in the bible, a secret code for those who know.

  “Behold,” he murmured, “he comes leaping on the mountains . . .”

  And in the field, broken flesh fluttered in the night wind.

  In the seat in front of him, Terry Kelton sobbed, his head hanging low on his chest.

  Conner thought, I can help him. He did not know how it was or why it was that he could leave his body so easily. He knew all about out-of-body travel, of course, he’d experimented with it, as he had with remote viewing and all such things, because he understood the physics of superposition, and how it was that the electrons in the brain, during meditation, would become ambiguous, no longer in any one place, and you could use that to prowl in hidden pathways.

  He slipped upward and outward, and saw, in his mind’s eye, four Air Force guys with two aluminum gurneys in the snow. He looked at the faces of the victims, and saw that John and Mrs. Kelton were alive. “Your mom and dad made it,” he told Terry. “You lost your brother and Manrico.”

  Terry turned around. “How do you—”

  Conner met his eyes. Your soul knows, he said inside himself. Terry blinked, then looked away and was silent for a time. Finally, a whisper: “Thanks for telling me.”

  Conner had work to do. He brought to mind the Three Thieves as they had appeared last night, dumpy and scared, hiding behind the trees and terrified of making a mistake. He imagined them bobbing along in the night the way they had, so upset about scaring him, so unable to understand how not to.

  I need you, he said in his mind.

  His thought was met by silence.

  They pulled into the Berryville Hospital emergency room. Medical personnel in green oversuits ran up, their portable stretcher rattling on the concrete driveway.

  The Air Force helicopter roared into view, dropping down onto the hospital’s rooftop helipad.

  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.

  EPILOGUE

  LATE AT NIGHT, WHEN THE

  DEMONS COME

  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.”

  She had to stop. She did not want him to hear the tears in her voice.

  Conner?

  He blinked, sat up straighter, stared toward the deck. That wasn’t Lauren, she was leaning over with her eyes closed and full of tears, almost about to spill her drink.