by Laura Watson
As the tour of the unimaginable meat plant was winding down, the Grays decided to show Mikel and Sarah the killing process they used. It was quite effective and was enjoyable to watch, the leader told Mikel. The people were picked at random. A group of one hundred humans were herded out by the Gray Guardians with their barbed tails and forced into a room where they were cleaned first.
They were sprayed with a purplish liquid that instantly removed all of the grime and dirt from their bodies. If they had long hair, as some of the women and men did, their hair was first pulled to the tops of their heads and bound with a clear band that sized itself tightly around the hair, forming a pony tail.
Sarah looked at this in wonder, not understanding why they would fix their hair that way when they were going to kill them. The people selected were then placed in a single-file line. As they waited, they speculated on what was going to happen next. As Sarah listened to them talking, her heart wrenched in her chest. They thought they were being set free. They were happy.
They still did not have the faintest idea of what was happening to them. Screams soon erupted as the claw like machine descended from above each of them.
It grasped them cruelly around their necks, the claws digging into their flesh, long ribbons of blood streamed down from the deep punctures. Their eyes were wide and horrified as the claws lifted them into the air. With a quick jerking motion, their necks were snapped.
They dangled from the claws like rag dolls, blood frothing from their mouths, their noses, their ears. Some of their limbs were still jerking spasmodically as a table slid into view underneath them and they were dropped unceremoniously onto it. The table slid out of view, taking the bodies to be processed further inside of the building, and the next hundred people were lined up, oblivious to what had just happened to the hundred before them, laughing excitedly as they stood in line.
They were able to prepare a hundred at once, so as one group was being killed, the next was being cleaned and processed.
New arrivals of humans daily, kept their supply fresh. Most of the humans they were bringing in were not from Earth, but from other planets scattered through the Universe. There was a never ending stream of humans coming into the meat plant.
Adam looked up from where he sat in his
enclosure. A Guardian was approaching. “Get ready Jacob,” he whispered. “You know what to do.”
The fifty children that Adam had chosen stood in a group beside of the only entrance or exit to the enclosure. The small machines were quietly scanning the room for activity. By moving very slowly, Adam and the children had managed to escape their notice and avoid the painful stings they delivered. Adam wasn't sure how long their luck would hold out during their exit, it just depended on how long Jacob and the others could keep the Guardian distracted.
“Remember what I told you,” Adam whispered softly to the gathered children, “walk slowly, don't push each other, and don't run.” They each nodded their small heads solemnly, their small faces marked with fear and anticipation.
The Guardian entered the enclosure. He towered over Adam, standing over seven feet tall. It was hard for Adam not to be intimidated by its' presence. His mind, Adam reminded himself, isn't like mine, I can do this.
Adam concentrated on the Gray's mind.
Sarah trudged along beside of Mikel, surveying the massive machines arranged along the far wall designed for processing humans through the meat plant.
Adam's voice sounded emphatically in her mind.
“Sarah, distract the Grays around you. We will be passing by you in a few minutes. You have to distract them to give us time to get to the exit.” Sarah silently acknowledged Adam. She staggered and fell against one of the huge machines, knocking off a large pile of mixed ghastly organs and entrails onto the dirty gray floor of the plant.
Mikel rushed over to where she lay, reaching to help her up. The Grays screeched in horror as the organs and entrails slid off of the machine's surface and quickly formed a ring around them, picking them up carefully and hurriedly placing them back on the machine. They didn't notice as Adam led his small group quickly and silently by them, hugging the wall closely as they slid past.
Mikel helped Sarah to her feet, gesturing and screeching his apologies for her clumsiness. The Grays were not easily placated. Mikel gestured carefully, keeping his screeching tone low and apologetic until the Grays finally returned to a calm state. They stared coldly at Sarah and bared their teeth menacingly.
They were led towards the exit of the plant and Mikel and the tour leader exchanged farewells. Sarah and Mikel stepped outside into the perpetual dimness of the planet's landscape. They walked slowly back to Mikel's ship, trudging through the dark gray dirt, exhausted.
They were met at Mikel's ship by Adam and the children that he had gathered, along with him. They were the youngest ones, who couldn't distract the Grays the way the older ones could, and the older ones insisted that they be taken, they were, after all, in the most danger.
Jacob, Adam's closest friend, elected to stay behind to give the smaller ones a chance to escape.
Sorrow and pride for his friend tore at Adams emotions, and was evident on his tear stricken face. Mikel placed his small hand on Adam's, reassuring him wordlessly, as they boarded the small craft.
The Trip Home
Sarah carefully placed her doll on the shelf beside of her bed. It was an old rag doll, dressed in yellow gingham. It was a gift from her Grandmother. Sarah only took it down from the little shelf to cradle it when she was afraid. She had not played with it for years until recently. She found herself reaching for it more and more.
Sarah had been alone for a week now. She
marked off each day on her Kitty Calendar that sat on the small white desk in her room. She had remembered to draw all of the curtains closed and not to use the electricity.
The power was out now, and the water. It came from the well behind of their house and the pump needed electricity to bring the water out of the ground.
Sarah had filled the tub, and all of the containers she could find with the cool well water before the power went out.
Her mother had just made a trip to the grocery store before vanishing into one of those ships along with the rest of Sarah's family, so there was enough food to feed her and the animals for months.
Mare, her cat, wouldn't come into the house.
Sarah called to her and held the door open when the dogs ran in, but Mare sat outside on an aging oak tree stump, licking her paw contentedly and stared silently up at the hovering crafts. She didn't even come in when Sarah offered her her favorite meal, a can of tuna. Sarah held the can at the door and Mare only looked at her for a moment, and then resumed her grooming, watching the activity of the overhead ships intently. Sarah finally had to close the door and bolt it, praying silently that Mare would be alright.
The dogs were safely indoors with Sarah, they ran into the house as soon as her family walked outside to their dismal fates. The dogs, Casey and Cocoa, stayed with Sarah now, never leaving her side as she crept through the silent house. They weren't barking the way they normally did. They weren't wagging their tails or playing with the toys Sarah gave them. They only sat, or walked beside of her, pressed closely against her legs, occasionally growling low in the back of their throats at something Sarah couldn't see or hear.
Sarah sat on the floor of her room. She sat with the dogs pressed tightly against her on either side. She stroked Casey's red fur absently as she thought about the trip home from that distant dark world and about Mikel. Casey's eyes were fastened on the window in Sarah's bedroom while Cocoa slept soundly beside of her.
They sat quietly as Mikel piloted his small ship away from the Gray's world of Kryox. Adam sat with the children he had led out of the grim prison and sobbed softly, his thoughts with Jacob. The fifty children were fast asleep in the living quarters of Mikel, stretched out side by side on the cool bare hematite colored floor.
Sarah exhaled her re
lief as she saw the planet getting smaller and smaller. She was so glad to be away from that horrible place. “I have so much to tell you Sarah,” Mikel said after some time. He turned to her and began, halting only long enough to check his controls or to answer one of Sarah's many questions.
“Mikel, why did you want to go to that planet?”
Sarah asked. “I didn't,” Mikel replied. “Serel sent me there to find two more Grays to work on board his ship.
The two that were there have left. I thought that since I was going anyway, that it would be a good time to show you what they have planned for the people of your planet.” Sarah thought about this for a minute and then asked “Why won't you stop them Mikel?”
“I cannot interfere with what will take place there,” Mikel said. “Then why did you help Adam and the children today?” I was compelled, Mikel thought.
He wasn't sure of the reason, himself. Although he abhorred the meat plant, he knew, as every other being in the Universe knew, that what went on there could only be permitted or ended by the Highest, but when Adam asked for Mikel's help, he knew that he could not refuse.
What made Adam so different from the countless others who reached out to him there, begging for his help? Mikel wasn't sure, he only knew that he should help him, he was compelled to help him. “I did what I could do Sarah,” Mikel responded. “If the Grays had discovered Adam's escape, I could not have helped. It would have sparked a conflict, but since they were able to escape unnoticed, the Grays are unaware of anything amiss.”
“Do you understand, Sarah?” Sarah nodded her head, “I think so Mikel, I just don't understand why the Grays are being allowed to kill humans to begin with, I mean, why do they have to eat people Mikel?” Mikel thought for a moment, looking out into the vastness of space through the window of his ship, his long fingers poised on the brightly lit control panel before him, and began to relay the long history of the Grays.
“The Grays”, he began, “are members of a
complex hierarchy of beings. They are a subset, an offshoot of a great culture of Grays that was once a very different race of beings. They once lived in the same light they now detest. As their Sun dimmed, so did their culture, their beliefs and their society. It was evolution in reverse for their great civilization. A gradual disintegration of knowledge, beauty and grace, as gradual as the death of their Sun.”
“They forgot,” Mikel continued, “that their planet once thrived with life, food to feed the billions, water and clean air. They gradually adjusted their diets to offset their lack of nutrients.”
“Humans became their new food source. The
merchants who visited their world became the first victims. Starving and desperate for sustenance, the Grays began killing them for food. After it became known that the Grays were consuming humans, few would venture there, increasing the difficulties of the Grays in obtaining food. This in turn began the Harvest.”
“Using the ships that were left by the unfortunate merchants, they began to venture out into the vastness of space in an attempt to colonize other planets but found that their bodies had degenerated to the point where sustaining life was impossible for them on any other planet except the large, dark, dead planet that was their home. They could survive for a year, two at the most before they were crippled by the lack of metals their bodies had become dependent on in the air of their dusty gray planet.”
“These metals were indigenous to their home world and although they tried frantically to replicate them, they were unable to reproduce these essential metals found swirling in the suspended gray dust of their world. They were forced to abandon their colonization efforts and focus on acquiring food as they returned to the welcomed darkness of their bereft world.”
“There were tens of thousands of planets that supported human life in the Universe. The Grays began the systematic Harvest of these planets, forgetting all that they knew about producing their own food. They found that they liked the meat of Humans, and in fact became addicted to the natural chemicals that the Human body produces.”
“Most addictive to them is bile, secreted by the human liver to help in digestion, this substance gives them a euphoric rush, and then a feeling of warm security, comfort, and well being. They must consume it now, without it, they suffer through what humans would term withdrawals, but these withdrawals will kill them.
Once they have sampled the liver and the sacred green wine, they are forever addicted.”
“It was not always this way among them Sarah”, Mikel continued sadly, “their Great Civilization degenerated, their former knowledge was no longer passed down for the next generations. This became their lives, and their means to sustain.” “This was now their method of food production, and The Ritual began. The Ritual was first performed to thank their Highest for giving them the knowledge to survive, it was written from their despair, to celebrate the abundance they had been given. The Ritual is as old as time itself for these Grays, these offshoots of a once great and wondrous civilization.”
“Why did that Gray screech at you when you wouldn't take the liver Mikel?”, Sarah asked. She had been dieing to ask Mikel what all that screeching was about. “I insulted him by not accepting his sacred gift,”
Mikel replied, a shudder of revulsion gripping his small frame.
“In their culture, Sarah, to share the liver means to share the gift of their Highest.” “It symbolizes the gift of life that they were given, of the vast supply of food that their Highest supplied for them when they were starving and on the very edge of extinction.”
“Well, what did you say to him? How did you get him to calm down Mikel?” Sarah asked, remembering the way the Gray had turned calmly around to face Mikel, and the reverent way he placed the liver back on the neatly stacked pile. “I told him that we didn't consume meat.”
Mikel didn't eat meat. None of his race did. Mikel thought that was common knowledge among all beings.
The Grays, however, didn't concern themselves with other cultures or races of beings. They cared only for their own kind, their machines, The Harvest and The Ritual. There was very little of their ancient ancestor's traits remaining in these modern day Grays.
“The Grays were once legendary celestial
beings.” Mikel said, a note of wonder tinging his tone.
“Their great cities were renowned for their culture and their aesthetic beauty. The music of their ancient golden instruments and the singing of the masses at sunset, rose resplendent through the clear beautiful yellow sky and was so stunningly beautiful and clear, each note ringing two or more dozen times in the clear dusk.”
“Beings from every Universe visited the large planet just to hear the glorious music that reverberated through the air as they sang to the Highest, giving thanks for all they had. There was nothing that would ever compare, then or now, to the lilting perfection of their songs.”
“It was a hauntingly beautiful planet,” Mikel continued on, recalling his visit there so long ago.
“Infused with a golden yellow light, every structure in perfect harmony and balance with the natural beauty of the planet. The billions of Grays, peacefully existed in their timeless glory. They were sharing beings, incomprehensibly intelligent beings of light and wisdom. They are now the grim butchers of the Universe, abhorrent and abominable, but, nevertheless, still part of the great order of beings.”
“The atrocities they commit are not for us to interfere with. It is only for the Highest to either allow or condemn. This is the established order of the hierarchy of all beings.” Mikel gazed out of the ship's large window. He was quiet for a long time, reflecting on the Grays' and their tragic past. He was clearly saddened by the loss of such a great civilization.
Mikel loved humans, even though they weren't much more than beasts in intelligence, when compared to his race. He believed that all beings deserved to be treated with care and kindness. He abhorred what the Grays were doing to them but he couldn't interfere. It is the established order, h
e said to himself. But I did interfere, he thought to himself, I felt compelled to help Adam.
These compulsions did not occur among his high order without some reason, it was written in one of the precepts. His wasn't to question why, but to listen to what he was being instructed to do.
Only The Highest can end it, he thought, but He lived beyond the infinity of space and time. For The Highest, what was merely a day, stretched into eternities for all others. The humans had brought this upon themselves, Mikel knew that, but he wanted to help them, and to help Sarah.
The systematic destruction of their gifts from The Highest was well known and lamented throughout the entire Universe. All of the human colonies were guilty of heinous acts. They ate them, beat them, starved and tormented and killed these innocent creatures, whom the Great Creator created and designed to help them, to protect them. The humans sealed their own fates. No one in the entire spectrum of beings could deny this.
The Harvest was justified. It was sanctified.
Mikel checked the small instrument panel on his left, intent on an approaching star, then turned once more to Sarah and said, “Animals, were designed to be your companions on the Earth. Placed there to protect you from evils seen and unseen, from unimaginable things that only they are uniquely equipped to face.”
“Their minds contain a sophisticated organic radar, able to track these Grays and all other worldly beings. Their minds are so accurately tuned that nothing escapes their attention.”
“Without them there as a first line of defense, humans are enormously vulnerable. The Human mind, however, with few exceptions, cannot comprehend that these inferior beings could hold such an important role in their world.”
“In ancient times, animals were appreciated for their loyalty and abilities, but so much of that ancient knowledge, from the previous Harvests has been lost or diluted down until the vast majority of mankind does not have any idea of what devastation their loss will cause. Humans forget over long periods of time.” He added, “When their civilizations were eradicated at Harvests, they rebuilt them with practically none of their former knowledge or with misleading, half-formed ideas of what they once were, much like the Grays' Civilization.”
