Women of the Grey- The Complete Trilogy

by Carol James Marshall

  Pride will get me killed, was all Lisa could think after that. She was honest with herself, attributed that pride of being against it all to what was controlling her behaviors. This made Lisa sit up straighter; now at least, she had a glimpse of understanding herself, instead of being just as confused about herself as she was about The Grey. Then, it hit her that she was stuck under the wing of The Grey. There was no escaping. There was no walking away. She was one of them. Lisa belonged to her kind, yet she couldn’t comply. The realization caused her to throw her tray across the room in disgust, watching everything spill, then hit the floor. That, right there, is why they hate me.

  Superior Mother watched Lisa toss her tray at the monitors. She pinched the bridge of her nose and tried to center her thoughts on how long could she protect Lisa; how long before she had to tell Lisa the truth. Perhaps, she would never tell Lisa the truth.

  A Mother walked into the room, glanced at the tray on the floor, and gave Lisa a huge smile. “Feisty, aren’t we? Well, that’s great, use it to get a human man to mate with you. Some of them, I would suppose, like a feisty piece of wonder like you Lisa love…” There was venom in her voice. Then, she looked directly at Lisa, “We are all the same and none different, right Lisa? RIGHT?”

  “That is very obvious…being that we are all a mirror image of each other…duh.” Lisa gave her a spiteful smile right back. She was practicing the two-faced, backstabbing smile that all the women of The Grey seemed to have once they became a Mother. In true Mother fashion, she responded to Lisa’s teenage angst, eye-rolling her comment into a grin.

  “Piece of wonder…that you are Lisa…piece of wonder…” The Mother walked out, and Lisa instantly knew what a complete ass she was. This Mother might have been the ticket to an easy breeding mission; now, she might be Lisa’s ticket to another suburban wasteland. If Lisa could, she would have kicked herself right then, but she knew she shouldn’t open her mouth again.

  The idea of motherhood, what does that mean to the women of The Grey, really? Any time after six months, the women hand their daughters in as if they were never a part of them, in them; as if they could be cold enough to have no bond. Lisa wondered, wouldn’t she want the touch of her daughter’s hand in hers or to gaze at the sight of her daughter’s toes wiggling. There might be a part of Lisa that would want, really want, to watch her daughter take those first steps, speak those first words. Lisa wondered, are we heartless? Cut us open, would there be nothing but ice clinging to scrawny lungs. “To Breed” in their simplicity, those two words were toxic, hate gathering propaganda.

  Sitting up, Lisa questioned everything she was told that day. How could Lisa just hand her daughter in like a ticket for a prize? Would there be line of women standing at some window, turning in their daughters for their new title of Mother? One baby equals one private room key. It wasn’t for The Grey, it was for the private room, it was commerce. Would there be a Mother standing there to shake their hands and congratulate them on the new accomplishment of completing their breeding mission? ‘Here’s the handbook of secrets you’ve finally gained access to!’ Standing up, Lisa started to walk around the room—every step, every inch, brought a new question that undoubtedly wouldn’t be answered.

  “What if I were to have a boy?” Lisa asked the air while she paced her room. Would she have to hand in the male child to the reject window? What was happening to the women of The Grey, if every child was half human? At what point did their alien DNA become diluted? How much of “we are all the same and none different” was really left in each brand-new copy of them. Yes, we look alike, but is that all that’s left? Lisa knew there was a solid point to this. It had to be this way. If only she knew how long they had been on earth. How many new half-human generations were among them? How much of the real women of The Grey was left in their DNA? Lisa paced the room; she had this feeling that she was more human than they were, and that questioned exactly where her alliance should be.

  “What if I refuse to mate? What if I refuse to give back my baby? What happens then? Who am I to refuse?” Lisa yelled at the monitors. Someone was listening, she was sure of it. There was a Mother there with ears on whatever Lisa said. A Mother was always listening. Lisa felt that she was nothing of importance to the world, but who were they to order her around, to send her out to breed like some beast.

  The room was too much; she knew that if she stayed there a moment longer, she would bash all the monitors into microscopic pieces. Lisa opened the door to the room and simply walked down the hall. She walked with the hope that a Mother would stop and question her, or just make eye contact. She hoped for any reason to get violent. Violence would equal punishment again, but this time she wasn’t going to take the cowards way. She’d welcome the violence that was sitting in her wanting out, wanting a chance to claw at whatever stood before her. With bravery hung on every step, Lisa kept walking the halls hoping something, anything, would happen. But, nobody came—not one Mother came to confront her for leaving the room. Not one woman of The Grey bothered to look her way.

  Teresa

  The bar smelled of dust, old beer, and other. The other was what bothered Teresa the most. She made excuses to James just to escape his adoration long enough to hunt for another male.

  Teresa’s goal was to find another male to bed, leave, then go back home to James. Maybe she could get pregnant, and if that happened, maybe she could convince James that the daughter was his. Who was she kidding? James was a clueless, sweet jug of honey. He would never question whether the daughter was his. The deception bothered Teresa, but the choices were few. She was running out of time. She knew that soon a Mother would be peaking in on her, deciding her future for her.

  Teresa had to be one step ahead of the Mothers and this deception was it. Teresa told herself over and over that one male was just like the other; there was no need to be so touchy about this. She could enjoy another man the same way she did James. The male species was, after all, disposable to the women of The Grey. The goal was to achieve a daughter, nothing else.

  Just as Teresa got comfortable with this choice, enough to order another drink, he sat next to her at the bar, smiled, and inhaled her. He was tall, sleek, the human equivalent of a sports car. Everything was streamlined, shiny, and would sparkle in the sun. He looked at Teresa with amusement because he thought he had the upper hand; he thought he was the hunter and she the prey.

  Little did he know, Teresa had no interest in the long term. She had no focus on his intellect, his humor, or his life. He was nothing but a meal for today—something to fill the void, then be evacuated. He thought her a needy female on the prowl for a man to ease her loneliness. If only he knew, women of The Grey need men to fill only one need… to breed. If this sports car of a man only knew that this woman he was hoping to bed valued him less than the dirt on her shoes.

  Hours later, in his bed, Teresa sank her hands into his lower back. She grabbed his arms and responded to every touch he gave her. They came together as if they had been in sync for years, tasting one another, exchanging sensation for sensation until both were exhausted and content. Teresa got up from his bed and gave him her very best smile—the smile she had seen Mothers give her day-after-day-after-day. She only wished to go home and shower, then try her very best to erase the picture of his face from her mind. Teresa wanted to erase the feel of him from her hands, and she wanted to erase the incredible want that stayed in her belly to bash his head in. Teresa wanted nothing more than to take a sledgehammer to the sports car. Instead, she made tea and sat at her kitchen table, thinking that was easier to do than erase.

  Abigail

  Jacob nested in bed next to Abigail; the heat from his body filled her up, tied her down to the sheets, and seduced her into an endless cycle of sleep. Abigail would wake to find him dozing with one arm on her shoulder; he never let go, this man of hers, whenever they were in bed—even in the deepest of dreams, he kept hold of her.

  Thumbprint contently dozed inside of Abigail, so
othing herself with the feel of her father’s breathing and the wave of heat that came off his skin. The thumbprint was now a palmprint. Palmprint was a vicious thing. Soon Palmprint’s father would leave for work and she would tug at her mother’s thoughts until Abigail succumbed to her wishes. There was a need for blood and there was a need for heat; the palmprint would not allow it to be otherwise. Abigail, quietly nestled in her bed, was clueless that she was now nothing more than a puppet for the palmprint to lead around the world. Palmprint wanted a bloody world

  Superior Mother

  Sitting on her bed, shoes off, pants off, and hair fallen down her back, Superior Mother sat wishing she could, for just a bit—maybe twenty minutes—remove the ring.

  The ice of the ring, the cold of it, sat on Superior Mother’s finger. It was a never-relenting reminder that she had the power of The Grey; but also a never relenting reminder that there was no warmth to them. There was no true heat in their souls; it was all bone-breaking cold.

  All doors in The Grey were now open to Superior Mother. She sat every day with the knowledge that they came to earth only to reproduce. Somewhere, somehow, they lost the male counterpart to their species, and the human male seemed to work just fine. Superior Mother stretched her legs out on her bed. The human male worked just dandy. She rolled her eyes, human males worked handy dandy, whatever.

  It took years to discover the human males, and now their species was replenished; yet here they sat, year-after-year away from their home. Why, was the question Superior Mother had yet to discover the answer to. Every door had been opened, every sinister act had been documented, every itch had been scratched, and still she knew only some answers. Not all.

  Who knows them all? The question that sat in Superior Mother’s lap like a block of cement. Who among them would finally place every detail on the table for her to poke at, for her to steal? Could she be the only one in The Grey that wished nothing more than to go home, yet existed in terror of what ‘home’ really meant?

  Lisa

  Walking down hall after hall, Lisa thought that she would make it—that there was a way to get away without the eyes of the Mothers knowing her every move. It was the adolescent, know-it-all attitude that put those thoughts in Lisa’s head. She was immature and had no real understanding of the years she had yet to go. The Mothers could hear the youth in her voice, the disrespect in her tone, and the ignorance that jumped off her tongue. The Mothers could see all the things in Lisa, that she couldn’t see in herself. There was no honest strategy there, just a young brain telling its host body to move, speak, and react without years of savvy to guide it. Lisa was a walking, talking, young adult dilemma.

  Superior Mother thought the issue was that Lisa had no clue who she really was—as the young often do not. They have such a power behind their passion, but are clueless as to how power works. Superior Mother knew the young had a passion for the senseless, and it is what shoves them down dark paths causing their elders to shake their heads.

  Absentmindedly humming to herself, Superior Mother wished the young, the stupid, could be rounded up and put away until they learned their place. Could that work with Lisa? Superior Mother didn’t think so. Lisa would have to tread over herself again and again before she could finally realize that she was “all the same and none different.” Lisa was a tiny screw in a large machine.

  Superior Mother turned her gaze towards the monitors to watch as a door opened. Almost casually, Lisa was taken from her wander down the halls—a whisper in her ear of “sleep.” It was all too quick for Lisa to fight; she was now sleeping soundly. This was a comfort to Superior Mother, knowing that Lisa would wake up outside The Grey, in another small apartment with her mission. A mission to breed—to breed for The Grey.

  The Quiet Man

  Jacob slept for way too long on Saturday. He was the type of man that was up with the sun, even on days when getting up was not required. It was chilly out, and his skin wanted to feel the whip of the cold breeze. Leaning against his truck while sniffing the air, Jacob felt mentally exhausted from his endless online search for clues as to what his gal and child really were. There was nothing real, nothing honest to any of it. Just reports from people with no scientific background or real answers—just made up internet garbage about women that looked like Abigail who came from nowhere and disappeared into nothing with the blink of an eye—not a trace of who or what they were.

  Jacob considered all of it gossip. What he needed was real answers, and he didn’t know where to get them. He thought about the local preacher, but he’d just give him empty speeches full of the love of Jesus with no evidence of anything else to stand on. Kicking the dirt with his toe, Jacob couldn’t help but snicker at himself. What he needed was science, but where to get that in a small backwoods town was something he couldn’t put his finger on.

  For a simple man, he found too many roads leading to nowhere and no true directions on a lead. He needed a compass, a beacon to light his path. There was none. It was empty and fruitless. Now, Jacob would jam himself into Abigail, putting his hand on her belly. Jacob felt a soft shift and a thump of heat rise up with his touch. The baby, or Palmprint as Abigail called her, knew his hands and put herself against him. Jacob knew this should not be so; this was not how things worked. Babies inside the womb don’t pulse, give off heat, or shift so that they lean against you like a faithful dog. This was different.

  This morning, Abigail kissed Jacob’s forehead and stuck her nose in his hair. “She’s behaving…” Then, she dozed back off into sleep. Jacob wondered if he would ever truly rest again—sleep would come yes, but would he ever rest knowing this baby of his was watching him from inside of its mother?

  The Thinker

  James sat back, dumbfounded. Did his mother really just tell him to pack his bags? Was she gently pushing him out of the nest? James thought so; she’d never told him anything like that before. There was always a cheery acceptance to her in regards to him. His mother accepted him for who he was with a smile and a song—never once letting on that she wished her son would spread his wings and take off.

  This brand new attitude had James viewing his mother in a different way. Suddenly, she was 4D to him and it was an awakening. His mother saw James from all different angles—not just as her son, not just as her only child, but she saw the boy, and the lack of man, he was. All was now clear to James, a clarity that he didn’t think existed.

  He had no choice—the gig was up, the game was over. He had lost. His mother, who he considered an air-headed punching bag for his father’s yelps, was the victor. The amount of stupid James felt sitting on his head was overwhelming. He sat on his parents’ front porch now—the porch that was once his. It finally sunk in that this was not his home anymore; this was not his porch. A man’s home was the one he built, either by hand or by cash. This couldn’t be his home; he’d had nothing to do with its birth. It was time to stand up and walk tall. The problem was, James remained seated.

  Mrs. Hanson

  Sitting on a bench in the middle of town, Mrs. Hanson pretended to watch the birds and drink coffee. She wanted all to believe that she was nothing more than an old lady drinking her coffee on a bench. Here she was, a sweet little old lady, going for a walk and enjoying her morning in the sunshine, nothing more. There was no need to tell the town her true intentions. Mrs. Hanson loved to watch and know. Ever since she could remember, there was a want in her, that to a normal person, could not be explained; the want of information.

  Taking a sip of her coffee, Mrs. Hanson watched the town’s folk drive by. She made mental notes of it all: what middle-aged man went to work and when; which high school girl should be in school and not driving her grandma’s truck around town; how many housewives were out shopping; which one of the duller than dirt housewives had the best gossip.

  She filed it all away in her head, like a secretary taking down the minutes for a meeting. Mrs. Hanson took one last guzzle, finishing off her coffee; it was disappointing. She had wanted
to stay on the bench longer, but knowing that her coffee had run out made her game less fulfilling.

  Getting up, and readying herself to walk home, she spotted Jacob in his truck. She gave him a nod, but he didn’t bother to notice. The nod sat in the air between them until Mrs. Hanson walked on, and Jacob got a green light.

  The Neighbor

  Mornings were lonely; all of her widow friends said that nights were the worst. They missed their husband’s snore, the warmth of a man in their beds. They missed the sound of the old man grumbling at the dog. But not her; the neighbor missed the busy mornings of breakfast, coffee, and packing lunches. Now that her children were grown, and her husband had passed, mornings where too relaxed for her taste.

  Not a coffee drinker, she at times made a pot just to smell the air in the kitchen as the sun was rising. Her husband smelled of coffee and cigars—not an endearing smell to most, but to her it was the same as lavender or vanilla; it was soothing, it was calm, and it was him.

  Shifting her weight from one foot to another, she had accepted that he was gone and that the children were grown with children of their own. The children came by often; there wasn’t a Sunday that her house wasn’t filled with her eldest and his family. There wasn’t a Tuesday night that her bachelor daughter didn’t come by with pizza and a poker game.