by Brandon Hale
Jerry had trouble breathing. It was them. Seeing the being step onto the street, every feeling of comfort or relief Jerry felt for the past three days vanished. Those feelings were obliterated by the terror that now consumed him. Any hope that they were here for noble reasons vanished.
The creature was indeed a stereotypical “gray alien,” but the people on the street were completely unprepared for the reality of the sight before them. Hearing about these aliens was one thing, but seeing one was an entirely separate experience. This thing wasn’t a computer generated image on a movie screen. Its skin glistened in the morning sun, highlighting the things often overlooked in drawings or movies. The veins running up its neck, pumping blood to its large head. The way its skin was darker around the mouth. The wrinkles surrounding its large, curious eyes. The veins beside those eyes, slightly throbbing. The almost imperceptible twitches in its tiny nostrils as it sniffed the morning air.
It looked naked, but there was no way to know for certain. It had no noticeable wrinkles that would indicate clothing, and there were no seams. There were small indicators, however, that it must be wearing some sort of outfit. It had no visible genitalia. Its hands had three long fingers and a thumb, but its feet had no toes at all, suggesting shoes of some kind. If it was wearing clothes, they perfectly blended with its skin.
The creature looked around the neighborhood, acting as though it hadn’t even noticed the people standing in the street. It gracefully knelt down and touched the road, then lifted its finger to its tiny nostrils and sniffed. It looked at the sky, blinking as the sunlight hit its face. The creature gave no indication that it was malicious. It also gave no indication that it was benevolent. If anything, it acted as though the humans in the road were irrelevant. It seemed to be interested only in the environment.
After some time, the creature finally looked toward the people in the street. Alice wasn’t sure, but she thought she saw a hint of a smile on its face. “They’re not here to hurt us,” she whispered, tears pouring down her face.
“Don’t be so sure,” Arthur warned, grabbing her elbow and stopping her from walking toward the alien. “And just because it’s not their intent doesn’t mean it’s not what will happen. Let’s wait this one out. Let them lead.”
The alien continued to watch the crowd. It seemed to be in no hurry. It just watched the people watching it. Eventually one of the neighbors began to walk toward it. He was a young man that lived across the street.
“It’s Hank,” Lauren said. “What’s he doing?”
“Being an idiot,” Arthur said, then yelled to the man. “Hank! Stay back, buddy!”
Hank ignored him.
“Just wait, Hank!” Arthur said. “No need to push things.”
“Listen to the professor,” a woman said from across the street. She was holding a baby.
“Hank’s wife?” Jerry asked.
Lauren nodded.
“This is going to go badly,” Jerry said.
Hank turned back to face Arthur. “This is ridiculous, professor. What the hell do they want? Somebody has to figure this out.”
“They’re coming out all across the world,” Arthur said. “Somebody will figure this out. You think about your wife and your baby.”
Hank turned back to the alien. “I am thinking of them,” he said.
Arthur knew that was a lie. Hank wasn’t doing anything for anyone but himself. He was broken by the waiting. “Hank,” Arthur yelled, understanding that he wouldn’t be able to stop the young man, “remember what the President said. Don’t look them in the eyes.”
Hank stood directly in front of the creature, searching for something to focus his eyes on. He settled on the creature’s shoulder. “Why are you here?” he asked in a trembling voice.
The alien tilted its head and looked down at him with those giant curious eyes. It remained silent.
“What can we do for you?” Hank asked.
The alien continued to stare.
Hank’s patience ended. His head snapped up and he looked into the creature’s enormous black eyes. “Goddammit, what do you want!”
The alien remained silent, but looked away. It looked at the crowd behind Hank.
“Talk to me!” Hank screamed. “Why are you here! Answer me!”
Lauren wasn’t sure, but she saw the alien make a movement that appeared to be a sigh. It looked down at Hank.
It looked into his eyes.
Hank stared at the creature for several seconds.
“What’s happening?” Alice asked. “Are they talking? I can’t tell.”
Hank’s wife began to scream as he fell back onto the road. His head hit the pavement with a disturbingly loud thud, and blood began to trickle from the wound the fall had created.
“Oh my God!” Lauren yelled as she sprinted toward the fallen young man.
“Lauren, no!” Arthur tried to catch her, but missed.
Lauren ran to the young man, ignoring the creature standing above him. She dropped to one knee and looked at Hank. His eyes were open, but he wasn’t awake. His eyes weren’t focused on anything. They just stared at the sky above him. His breathing was fast, like a woman trying to control her breathing while giving birth. Blood trickled from his nose. Lauren wasn’t sure if it was from the fall or something more.
Lauren looked up at the crowd. “Is there a doctor here?” she yelled. “Doctor Taylor. Is he home? Someone go get Doctor Taylor!”
“He’s gone,” one of the neighbors said. “He left town the day they arrived. Probably went to be with his family.”
Hank’s wife was sitting on their lawn, holding her baby, rocking back and forth, sobbing hysterically.
Lauren stood up and turned around, facing the alien.
“My God, Laurie!” Arthur screamed. “Back away!”
Lauren looked at the creature’s chin. “Why?” she asked. “He just wanted to talk to you.”
The creature simply stared at the crowd.
“I can’t believe you came this far just to kill us,” Lauren said. “I can’t believe that.” She reached her hand out to touch the alien.
It stepped away from her.
“Help him,” she whispered. “Please. He has a family. I don’t know what you did, but please… undo it.”
“If it doesn’t understand reason,” Frank the neighbor said, “maybe it’ll understand a God dang bullet to the face.” He started to walk toward his house.
Arthur grabbed him by the arm and spun him around. “Don’t be stupid! Are you trying to get us all fucking killed!”
Frank stared at him for a moment, then said, “That boy had a wife. And a baby boy. It had no right to do that.”
“I know, Frank,” Arthur said. “But it wouldn’t have hurt him if he hadn‘t demanded it look him in the eyes. Think about it. I don’t think it meant to hurt anyone.”
Lauren spun around and yelled, “That’s bullshit, Arthur!”
“Laurie,” Arthur said.
“Shut up with the Laurie crap,” Lauren said. “You lost the right to call me Laurie when your pecker got hard for Alice!”
Jerry cackled. “Pecker?”
“Shut up, Jerry,” Lauren said. “Something is very wrong with this young man, and that thing knew it would happen. You saw it! It tried to avoid the contact.”
“Exactly!” Arthur said. “It tried to avoid it.”
“But it didn’t avoid it, Arthur!” Lauren said. She spun around to the alien. “You didn’t avoid it! Who’s next? Me? You want to cause me to fall? Well, here I am!”
“Fuck,” Jerry whispered. He ran to Lauren and grabbed her arm. “Come on,” he said.
“No!” she screamed.
“Lauren,” Jerry said calmly. “You’re helping nobody here. Come on.”
Beginning to calm, Lauren closed her eyes and said, “Someone get him to a bed. Maybe the government has some sort of treatment.”
As they walked away, Jerry said, “Someone get him to a bed.” Arthur and Alice walked u
p to the scene.
Jerry looked at Hank’s wife. “Maybe he just needs to res--”
Jerry screamed as he felt the finger touch the back of his neck. He jumped forward and spun around to see the alien looking at him, its hand extended. “Don’t fucking touch me!” Jerry screamed.
It stared at him with that same look of mild curiosity, then returned to its ship.
Lauren had once again taken the role of supporter. “It’s okay,” she said.
Jerry stood in the street, crying as he watched the creature return to its ship. His hand came up and touched the back of his own neck, where the alien had touched him. “I think it’s very, very far from okay right now, Laurie.”
“Hey,” Lauren said. “You had a hard pecker for Alice too, you know. Did you miss my qualification speech on calling me Laurie?” She nudged him with her elbow.
Despite everything, he chuckled. “Why pecker?”
“I don’t know,” Lauren said with a smile. “It just shot into my head. Maybe the aliens put it there?”
Jerry chuckled, but the smile faded quickly as he watched the creature re-enter its craft. “Why did it touch me?”
“I don’t know,” Lauren said.
Full Disclosure
“I promised full disclosure,” the President said from behind the podium, “and that’s what you’ll get.” The dark circles under his eyes evidenced a prolonged lack of sleep. He pulled a microphone from the podium and said, “Can someone bring me a chair? I’m damn tired.”
One of the reporters stood up and carried his chair to the President. “Thanks, David,” the President said as he placed the chair beside the podium and sat down. “Someone get this man another chair.”
He looked at the reporters in the room. “You can all put your hands down,” he said. “I’m going to talk for a while. If you have a question that‘s burning a hole in your brain, ask it, but don’t feel rushed. I’m going to stay here long enough to answer every single question you have. I don’t care how damn long it takes. We‘re on the same team here. This has gone beyond gotcha questions and politics. We all good with that?”
The reporters nodded their assent.
“Good,” the President said. “First and foremost, I need to address this morning’s events. We’ve now had over four hundred reports of people in comatose like states because of attempted communications with the aliens. I’m sure there are thousands more that we just don’t know about yet.”
“You should have been more explicit in your warning,” one of the reporters said.
The President nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “We should have. And thanks for holding back for a whole twenty seconds before speaking, Shelley.”
“Sorry, sir,” Shelley said. “But it had to be said.”
“You’re right,” the President said. “Of course you’re right. We misjudged them. More specifically, we misjudged their patience.”
“You knew what would happen, didn’t you,” another reporter said. “That’s why you gave the cryptic warning at the end of the last press conference.”
“Yeah,” the President said. “By the time we had that press conference, we had lost three people. Two attempts had been made before I even got there. We also had reports of the same results from other governments. And before you start with the ’why didn’t we tell you’ questions, I’m about to explain it, even though I’m sure you folks can guess the reasons.
“We didn’t say anything for two very simple reasons. The first reason was the most obvious. We didn’t want to start a world wide panic.”
“It would have prepared us, sir,” the reporter that had given up his chair said.
“I know that, Dave,” the President said. There was no mistaking the fatigue in his voice. “And that brings me to the second--and more foolish--reason we didn’t say anything. Simply put, we didn’t know it would be an issue. The aliens came to us first. They came to the governments of the world. We were working under the assumption that they wanted to open communication as much as we did. We still believe that, by the way. We believe they were trying just as hard as we were to find a way to communicate with us without causing the side-effects we’re all too familiar with now.
“But somewhere along the way, they changed their plan. They apparently decided they had to go to the people directly and attempt communication that way. We did not expect that to happen. We thought they would work with us until we had a breakthrough. Please understand that we’ve still seen no evidence that they want to hurt us. On a personal note, I think it’s quite obvious that they’re not here to hurt us. It’s pretty clear that if they wanted to, they could destroy every city and town on this planet.”
“That’s not a very comforting thought, sir,” Dave said.
“Actually, I think it’s an extremely comforting thought,” the President retorted. “It tells me this isn’t an invasion. It makes me hope that we’re in the process of making new friends. It’s a long and very painful process, but I think we’ll get there. Unfortunately, the assumption that they were here for peaceful reasons caused us to also assume we had all the time in the world to break the communication barriers. That’s why we thought it best to leave the more unpleasant details out for the time being. It would be something we’d eventually overcome, so we saw no need to cause a panic.”
“Kind of backfired,” a reporter said.
“Yes,” the President said. “It did.”
“You didn’t agree with the decision,” Dave added. “Did you, sir. That‘s why you threw in the little warning.”
The President waved his hand dismissively. “Not important,” he said. “What’s important is the fact that they decided to go directly to the people. There are implications to that action, Dave, that are disturbing.”
“What implications?” another reporter said. “It’s disturbing to you that the aliens believe in working with the people, instead of hiding things from them?”
“You’re Charles, right?” The President said.
“Yes, Mr. President.”
“Well, Charles,” the President said, “I feel like you’re making this a political thing. I asked you not to do that. Truth is, I’m a firm believer in going straight to the people. And you know what? Dave was right. I didn’t agree with the decision to keep anything from you. So try and refrain from putting words in my mouth, okay? Give me time, and I’ll make myself look like a jackass. I don’t need your help.“ Several reporters laughed.
“In all seriousness,” the President continued, “I’m not disturbed because they have some political philosophy that differs from my own. I’m disturbed that they decided to risk your lives by going straight to you. They knew what the most likely outcome would be, and yet they still tried. The implications of that, Charles, is disturbing.”
“Just to clarify,” another reporter said, “are you saying it disturbs you that they don’t respect human life?”
“No,” the President said. “What the hell is wrong with you people? I think they do respect human life. That’s why they came to the governments first. What disturbs me is the implication that they have something important to tell us. Something time-sensitive. It tells me that whatever they’re trying to say to us is important enough to risk killing a few of us just so the rest of us can know whatever the hell it is they’re trying to say.”
The room was silent.
“Yeah,” the President said. “Like I said. Disturbing.”
“So,” a reporter said, “what is the White House doing now? What are you doing to help facilitate communication?”
“To be honest,” the President said, “we decided to have a press conference explaining all of this to the people, in the hopes that somebody, somewhere, might have a good idea on what to do next.”
“When is this press conference going to hap…” the reporter stopped, thought for a moment, then said, “Oh.”
“We have a theory about what the problem is,” the President continued, “but we can’t think of a way to get
around the problem. Like I mentioned the last time, it’s pretty obvious they communicate telepathically. We also think that communication happens through eye contact. But we think they communicate with pure thoughts, not words. Our scientists think they’ve evolved beyond words. And their thoughts seem to be too advanced for our minds. They shut us down. We don’t know for sure, because nobody that has attempted communication has been able to tell us what happened. We have the leading scientific minds in the world working on this, but we just can’t seem to overcome the apparent fact that their very thoughts are too advanced for our minds to handle.”
“They’re overlooking the obvious,” Arthur said as he watched the television.
“What do you mean?” Alice asked.
“They’re focusing on the quality of the thoughts,” Arthur said. “Not the quantity. What if the problem isn’t what they’re thinking… what if the problem is the amount of thoughts that are getting thrown at us. They need to find people that can close their minds to unwanted thoughts, not people that are completely open.”
“Interesting,” Lauren said. “Art, that’s good.”
“I don’t understand why they haven’t thought of this yet,” Arthur said.
“Maybe they have,” Lauren offered.
“You’d think they’d have mentioned it,” Alice said.
“Art,” Lauren said, “you need to get that theory to them.”
Arthur laughed coldly. “I’m a teacher at a community college in a small Virginia town. How the hell am I going to get them to hear my ideas? Besides, you’re right, I‘m sure. I’m sure they‘ve tested that already.”
“I keep thinking of psychics,” Alice said. “Have they tried people that show some ability in that regard?”
“Doubtful,” Arthur said.
“Hey,” Alice said, “I didn’t poo poo your idea.”
“I’m not saying it’s a bad thought,” Arthur said. “I actually think it’s a valid approach. I’ve never disregarded the possibility of extra sensory perception. If anything, the problems with communicating with these guys strongly suggest it’s a valid approach. I just don’t think the world’s greatest scientific minds are open enough to that possibility.”
