Women of the Grey- The Complete Trilogy

by Carol James Marshall

  Lisa showered, washing the smell of Israel off of her. Humans have such a smell. It was amazing that each one smelled different. No two had the same smell. She wondered, if you took two humans, bathed them exactly the same way, used the same soap, the same amount of time, same pattern of washing, would they smell the same? Probably not.

  Turning on the TV, Lisa felt small sparks of panic fly across the room, each one popping her chest. Why did she do that? Why did she ruin her coffee shop? And now, she could be pregnant. Damn it, Lisa damn it. Times like these, Lisa could hardly tolerate being in the same room with herself.

  She never understood why she did the things she did. Often, she would spit in the direction of being an empath and blame her actions on that. But that wasn’t it. Being an empath only meant that she would always side with the humans even when she didn’t want to, and Lisa was starting to believe she could rid herself of that.

  Plopping herself down on the couch, Lisa wanted to go back into the shower and scrub the empathy away. She licked her lips. A bigger wish would be to scrub it all away—the empathy, The Grey. She’d scrub down to the bone, where she could stand alone, empathetic only to herself. Loyal only to herself. That was the way it should be. Lisa wondered if that was the way it could be. Looking to the left, and then to the right, she mumbled, “Break The Grey.”

  Superior Mother sat down, dizzy and tired. The Mothers had been relentless in their questioning today. Relentless in their issues. Relentless in their need. Relentless in their want. The women of The Grey were little beasts in polo shirts.

  The Neighbor

  The neighbor lady sat on the floor, rubbing her neck while trying to breathe through a coughing fit. The tiny speck of a girl had picked her up and held her high, choking her. The funny thing was, while she was doing the choking, the neighbor had gotten a glimpse of the girl’s eyes; she was crying.

  This tiny thing of a girl didn’t want to choke her. The neighbor couldn’t think of a person that would cry, cry like she did with big sloppy tears, if they wanted to hurt someone else. It was obvious the girl didn’t want to do it. Inside her somewhere was a beast, when really the little lady was nothing more than a sparrow. The neighbor shook her head hearing a child’s laughter. Everything was so disorienting. The little house was a mixture of a horror film and the twilight zone. All she had seen, had punched her sober.

  Jacob was busy trying to console the girl. He had such a look of panic to him that the neighbor knew in that instant that she was going to help him. Despite being near death, despite the haunting giggling that echoed in the room—from what the neighbor believed was the baby—the look on Jacob’s face was something she could not walk away from. She knew she’d never speak of whatever it was that was happening. She wouldn’t tell her children. The neighbor lady would stay silent on it all. Better deaf and dumb to this, than seen as crazy to everyone else.

  Getting up, she rubbed her neck. She tried her best to walk tall and strong, not showing a hint of having the life almost choked out of her. Tapping Jacob on the shoulder, she squatted next to him. Jacob looked at her in a panic. Abigail was sobbing in pain and her belly bounced with such force it looked like the lid on a pot that was about to boil over. Her tiny dress, singed around the belly, was now completely scorched.

  “The baby might be coming. We should get ready.” The neighbor tried her best to make the word “baby” sound like a question, and “get ready” sound like a good idea; because, by the sight of it all, there would be no hospital for this.

  “Some towels, a pillow, maybe a pastor? Priest?” The neighbor knew damn well their local pastor had more interest in golf than prayer, but she was trying to be a good Christian. The local Catholic priest was probably better suited for this job.

  Abigail moaned, “What’s a priest?” Jacob placed a few pillows behind her head and laid her on her back. The neighbor was as perplexed by Abigail’s question as she was by the situation. There was no telling where this girl came from, or what she was. Now, the neighbor told herself that this was the time to act as if Abigail was her daughter. This girl needed her mama… or a mama.

  Grabbing the comforter off the bed, she put it on the floor under Abigail’s bottom and told Jacob to take off her panties. She might need something to bite down on. Jacob ran outside and came back with a reasonable looking stick.

  The laughter had stopped some time ago, but the bouncing belly had not. The heat that was rising from Abigail was causing sweat to pour down Jacob’s face. Nobody mentioned the paramedics. Nobody mentioned the hospital. It was too obvious the answer was, “no, can’t, won’t.”

  The neighbor lady sat next to Abigail, holding her hand and carelessly watching her belly flop about. Suddenly, they noticed each other. Sunny, in a tantrum, hadn’t noticed the neighbor lady, and the neighbor lady hadn’t noticed Sunny. Sunny put her face against her mommy’s belly and gave that human her very best grin. The type of grin you see in toy commercials. The kind of grin a kid gives when they are handed a cookie.

  The neighbor saw it clear as day—the eyelashes of the child, the cheeks, and a grin with… with teeth. There were teeth. She could see them through the skin of Abigail’s belly. The neighbor lady pushed the head back; she wasn’t going to fall for it. That grin was something… not right. Being able to see the baby through the belly was not right. The steam that came off the belly was not right.

  Sitting next to Abigail, watching the beauty of birth turn sour and unworldly, she knew that she needed to see this thing through. She needed to see that child come out. Even if she never understood it. Even if nobody ever explained it to her. She’d stay there trying to help while watching it all unfold.

  Getting up from the floor next to Abigail, the neighbor tried to shake out the image of that child. She needed some whiskey. This night would take some whiskey.

  Eleanor

  Sitting at her desk, Eleanor looked over lists of names that needed taking care of. These were the loose ends of girls Superior Mother wanted taken care of ASAP. Eleanor was used to this. She was the one that took care of loose ends. She was the one that showed up and removed a woman of The Grey when they weren’t getting things right. When they handled their marks in a way that required more training. There was another team for the bad ones; the ones that went against the rules. Eleanor wanted no part of that team. She’d drudge along trying to repair these creatures that Superior Mother thought fit to go out on missions. Eleanor thought otherwise.

  Flipping the list around, Teresa’s name stood out. It was as if it had a neon highlight on it. Eleanor needed to bring Teresa in. She had to, damn it. Eleanor had stalled long enough, and soon it would bring too many questions and too many eyes on her. Eleanor avoided eyes on her. She worked very hard in The Grey to go unnoticed. Eleanor wished to enter a room without being seen, then leave it without anyone knowing she was there in the first place.

  Eleanor lived her life to be better than a mythic ghost. In stories, sometimes humans would catch a glimpse of a ghost. Eleanor found this a flaw. She wanted a life where there wasn’t even the possibility of glimpsing her. It was better that way; to go noticed is to call trouble.

  As sorry as she felt for Teresa, she couldn’t allow that to draw attention to her. It would ruin the anonymity she had worked so hard to conquer. She’d have to bring her in and let Superior Mother hand her fate down. Tapping her finger on the desk, she thought, it will be today. It should be today. Poor thing, so many men, so much work. It is unfair to punish her.

  Crawling under her desk to lay down, Eleanor pushed her lips together, wrapped her arms around her legs, doing her best fetal position. Eleanor did this when the weight of her deeds—deeds that held shame for her, deeds that made her wince—pushed her to almost break. Teresa was the first woman of The Grey to be barren—that she had heard of anyway. A first, but not in celebratory way.

  Teresa would bring worry to Superior Mother. Superior Mother did not do well with worry. She treated it with anger, wanting
to take that worry and bash it against a wall. Superior Mother, holding onto worry, would bring a plague of fret to all the Mothers. The Mothers would want to know the ‘why’ of the worry, and the answer to it. Eleanor had so many questions. Would Superior Mother be kind? Would she want to cover it up, sweep Teresa under the rug? The rugs in The Grey were kept behind locked doors where despicable lived under Superior Mother’s orders.

  Eleanor shuttered. Would they study Teresa? Take her behind those locked doors, rip pieces of her apart? She told herself that it was not her concern. It was not her worry. Eleanor needed to bring Teresa in and go about her business, not being seen. She stared at the under belly of her desk. It was covered in scratches, her scratches. When enough was enough, and she couldn’t hurt herself, she would claw at this desk, pretending she was digging her way out of The Grey. Blinking away the scratches, Eleanor would focus on Teresa being gone, just gone—no worries for her, no worries at all.

  Sitting up, she knew what Superior Mother did with Teresa was not to be questioned anyhow, anyway, or by anyone. It was just this thing, this chirping cricket annoyance in her mind. We are all the same and none different. Teresa was different. Was different going to be dealt with, or was different going to be celebrated?

  Stretching her legs and standing up, Eleanor knew it would be dealt with. Superior Mother wouldn’t want that truth out. The women did not need to know that they are not all the same—that some might be different.

  Superior Mother knew that if one whisper of different came out, then that idea would spark. Soon different would mean that all did different things at different times, and that there really was no need for such uniformity in their lives. There was no need for such strategy. The smallest idea of different would make them wonder, different from whom? From each other? From humans? Then, they’d want answers and answers in The Grey had to be earned.

  Eleanor knew that one seed of an idea, planted correctly, would rock the foundation of The Grey. Superior Mother knew this; she guarded it like a rabid beast. Eleanor hated that earning an honest answer took decades; by then your concept of different was one of dislike. It was the young ones who would embrace it. It was the young ones who wanted to explore different, taste it, then try it on for size.

  Then what? What then, anarchy? Would the women all rebel against the way of The Grey? Would they all comply and fight for their race? Eleanor did not want to be the one that rang that bell. She didn’t want to be the one whose name was mentioned for bringing in the one woman of The Grey that was barren, that was the one beacon of different.

  “We are all the same and none different,” Eleanor whispered to her palm. If only that were true.

  Israel

  After two days, the cold was gone. The sprinkle of ice on his skin was less every day until it was none. Israel could once again swallow without feeling ice in his throat, and he could once again bend his legs without thinking they would crack like an icicle.

  Israel had been gone from work and from the world. While the ice melted away, he had been at home, locked away, worrying. Friends circled around him enough to have his family called. His sister and mama came over, convinced he had the flu. They fed him soup, they fussed over him. He tried to seem cheered up, all healthy and lively for his mom and sis, but nothing could be done until the cold was gone. No soup, no head rubs, no quiet prayers would sooth the situation.

  When the cold lifted, Israel felt that the snow had cleared on the highways, just like on the news. It was now time for Israel to get back to work and back outside to prove to himself that he wasn’t scared. He was a man after all, fear of stepping out, fear of seeing Lisa again wasn’t his thing, wasn’t right. But, his view of himself, his world, his thoughts, his passion was now different. So very different that now, he would walk with trepidation when he always swaggered.

  Israel couldn’t react differently; he had arrived at that moment in his life when he now knew something he couldn’t unknow. It was an answer to a question he didn’t know existed, information screamed into his skull, burrowing its way into his heart, his fingernails, tears. Every inch of him now knew that Lisa was something so very frightening that shaking it off and walking proud would never be an option again.

  If caught in slow motion, a person could watch a handsome young man, that was smiles and jokes, now turned inward towards his suspicions. Israel was fresh cut grass now turned to gravel. He now knew there was different out there, and it wasn’t werewolves, it wasn’t vampires. This different was cold.

  As Israel laid in his bed for two days, covered in every blanket he could find, all he could think of was Lisa and the cold. Her face wrapped itself in with the cold that ran down his spine. Both images twisted and turned in his thoughts until the only conclusion he had was that Lisa was a cold that was unexplainable—a cold that had to come from the stars, the moon, from space. That was the answer he had for anything hidden under his covers, violently shaking the cold away from him. He was cold. She was cold. Space was cold. Space is cold.

  Days after his mom and sis went back home, his friends went back to their normal routine, Israel was still trying to shake “space is cold” from his thoughts. He wanted to return to normal, open his coffee shop back up. He thought that if he could just get back to the smell of his coffee shop, the warmth would return; that smell was warmth. Israel believed it could wrap around his spirits like his covers, and if the smell worked, then maybe he could get back to chatting with his customers, feel the sun shine through the trees, watch the steam that rose from all the coffee cups.

  He convinced himself that doing normal things would make him feel better. He could feel almost whole again. He would get passed this, he was sure of it. But when it came time to walk home, his apartment was only a few blocks away. Days passed, and Israel was slowly feeling more sunshine, noticing a bit more swagger come back to him. Until the night, when locking the coffee shop door, Israel noticed Lisa down the block leaving her apartment building and walking in the opposite direction.

  The white hair, the tiny frame, the slow deliberate walk. Israel felt cold pinch at his toes. It was crawling back in him at the very sight of her. She marked him. She marked him and he knew it. He was cursed now. He was poisoned with whatever she was. Looking down at his chest, Israel was sure he’d see a mark on him—a mark for her kind to find him. When would it happen, any moment or years later? He had a target on him. When her kind came, would they take him? Then what? Then what?

  Sitting on the front steps of the coffee house, Israel watched Lisa’s tiny frame walk farther along. The idea of living in such cold terrified him—to be trapped in space, in that cold, a cold that weaved itself into not only the body of the person, but also invading the thoughts. There was no getting away from it. There was no escape from space.

  Going home as quickly as he could, Israel took the hottest shower he could tolerate. He needed the heat pushing against him. After that, he got into bed, turned off the lights, buried himself under his covers, and tried to focus on what to do. It was childish, hiding from the boogie man type thing, but he knew he couldn’t stop himself. He’d met the boogie man in the form of a small alien woman.

  The cold felt close to him, as if it was just outside his bedroom door with claws, cackling at him. He knew there was no hiding from this cold; it would worm its way in, no matter what he did. Israel shook off his blankets and got out his laptop. He would look up everything he could on alien abductions. When they came? How they came? What happened? They are coming, Israel whispered to himself.

  When they came, he would be ready. There was no question in his mind that he’d be taken. There was no question in his mind that Lisa was an alien, and there was no doubt that all this made him sound insane. He thought about telling his friends, but could already hear their response. “Aliens, bro…shit you need to go take a run or something. Clear your mind…Get to church boy, you need to be thinking about Jesus and not skinny-ass white girls…” They would never understand him. They would
never let it go.

  He knew this had to be his own demon to battle. He would tell no one. He would not spread the word of his new gospel. This would have to be his secret. Dealing with it would have to be his mission. From now on, Israel was alone, surrounded by friends and family, while holding this truth. It was an absolute truth.

  Allison

  Sitting at the playground in their apartment complex, watching her daughter run around with her dolls, the only thing on Allison’s mind was how to touch Lisa. She needed to know if Lisa was as cold as Israel claimed. Her brother had never mentioned this, but when he’d hooked up with one of them, he became very quiet, distant, never wanting to share the simplest detail of his daily life with anyone. Allison figured it out; he was keeping her secrets.

  She smiled at her daughter, who was busy setting up tea time for everyone. Her smile was vacant. She wanted answers, and now Israel refused to answer her phone calls. He avoided even looking at her any more. Now he was keeping Lisa’s secrets, and Allison couldn’t figure out why.

  Fake giggling mixed with a fake snobby accent, Allison humored her daughter while sitting in her fury. What infuriated her the most was the lack of information about these women. The internet was an endless wasteland of information on everything conceivable, and there was next to nothing for her to go on. All Allison could find online was big foot type stories of people who made claims of a conspiracy of fragile looking blonde women. They all sounded like scorned men.

  Declaring tea time over, and a success in her snob talk, Allison’s daughter seemed pleased enough to watch a cartoon. The cartoon gave Allison time to think of an excuse to touch Lisa. She needed more than a simple hand shake. She needed more than a gentle slide of her hand over Lisa’s to feel if this cold was a real thing. Allison wasn’t sure what that more was, she was just certain about the need to achieve it.