The Grays Read online

  THE GRAYS

  THE

  GRAYS

  WHITLEY STRIEBER

  This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this novel are either fictitious or are used fictitiously.

  THE GRAYS

  Copyright © 2006 by Whitley Strieber

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form.

  This book is printed on acid-free paper.

  A Tor Book

  Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC

  175 Fifth Avenue

  New York, NY 10010

  www.tor.com

  Tor® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Strieber, Whitley.

  The Grays / Whitley Strieber.—1st ed.

  p. cm.

  “A Tom Doherty Associates book.”

  ISBN-13:978-0-765-31389-8

  ISBN-10:0-765-31389-8 (acid-free paper)

  1. Life on other planets—Fiction. 2. Kentucky—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3569.T6955G73 2006

  813'.54—dc22

  2005034494

  First Edition: August 2006

  Printed in the United States of America

  0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  This book is dedicated to those millions of people around the world who, like me, have faced the enigma of the grays and are also left with the certain knowledge that they represent a genuine and spectacularly provocative unknown. It is my hope that this work of fiction will penetrate into that unknown and draw its secrets into discovering light.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  The Grays has been many years in the making. I have not the words to thank Anne Strieber for her patience, her great courage, and her willingness to travel with me on what must seem like a quixotic journey indeed, seeking to find in fiction the truth about the grays, which is too elusive to bring to genuinely sharp focus in factual narrative.

  I would also like to thank my agent, Russell Galen, whose faith in this project kept it alive, Tom Doherty and Bob Gleason of Tor Books, who were willing to say yes and have provided me with such useful discipline and insight, Cary Brokaw and John Calley, whose enthusiastic support have been an inspiration, and Aaron Craig Geller, whose attention to detail and story sense so helpfully illuminated my efforts.

  PART ONE

  NIGHT FLYERS

  Who’s in the next room?—who?

  I seem to hear

  Somebody muttering firm in a language new

  That chills the ear.

  No: you catch not his tongue who has entered there.

  —THOMAS HARDY

  “Who’s in the Next Room?”

  ONE

  BECAUSE WE KNOW IT IS there, danger in an obvious place—on a battlefield, say—is often far less of a threat than it is on a quiet street in a small town. For example, on a street deep in America where three little boys rode interlocking figure eights on their bicycles, and on a sweet May evening, too, any danger would be a surprise. And a great and terrible danger—impossible.

  Not all of the boys were in danger. In fact, two of them were as profoundly safe as anybody else in Madison, Wisconsin, on the scented evening of May 21, 1977. The third boy, however, was not so lucky. Not nearly.

  Because of something buried deeply in his genes, he was of more than normal interest to someone that is supposed not to exist, but does exist—in fact, is master of this earth.

  It was too bad for this child—in fact, tragic—because these creatures—if they could even be called that—caused phenomenal trauma, scarring trauma . . . to those of their victims who lived.

  Play ended with the last of the sun, and lights glowed on the porches of Woody Lane, as one by one the boys of the lane retired.

  Danny rode a little longer, and was watched by Burly, the dog of Mr. Ehmer. Soon Mr. Ehmer himself came across his lawn. His pipe glowed as he drew on it, and he said, “Say there, Danny, you want to come night fishin’ with me and your Uncle Frank? We’ve been getting some good’uns all this week.”

  Danny was a lonely child, saddled with an alcoholic mother and a violent father, so he welcomed these chances to be away from the tensions of home. He could take his sleeping bag and unroll it in the bottom of the boat, and if his line jerked it would wake him up. But not tonight. “I got Scouts real early,” he said, “gotta get up.”

  Mr. Ehmer leaned back on his heels. “You’re turnin’ down fishin’?”

  “Gotta be at the park at nine. That means seven-thirty mass.”

  “Well, yes it does. It does at that.” He drew on the pipe again. “We get a sturgeon, we’ll name ’im for you.” He laughed then, a gentle rustle in his throat, in the first gusts of the wind that rises with the moon. He left Danny to go down the dark of Woody Lane alone, pushing the pedals of his Raleigh as hard as he could, not wanting to look up at the darkening sky again, not daring to look behind him.

  As he parked his bike and ran up to the lit back door, he was flooded with relief as he hopped on the doorstep and went into the lighted kitchen. He smelled the lingering odor of fried chicken, felt hungry but knew there was none left in the house. He went into the living room.

  He didn’t stay long. Love Boat was like a religion with Mom and Dad, and then came Fantasy Island. He’d rather be in his room with the Batman he’d bought from Ron Bloom for twenty cents.

  At the same moment a few miles away, Katelyn Burns, who adored Love Boat, watched and received advice from her mother about painting her toenails. Very red, and use a polish that hardens slowly. They last longer, chip less, good on the toes. Next week school was out and she wanted—had—to paint her toenails for Beach Day.

  A magnetism of whispers that Katelyn assumed were her own thoughts had drawn her to Madison, Wisconsin, and to this shabby apartment near the water. An easy place, Madison, the thoughts whispered to her, for a divorcee to find a man. An easy place, they most certainly did not tell her, from which to steal a child, carry her out and take her far, so that when her screams started, there would be none to hear her but the night wind. And so it would be this night, after the Love Boat sailed away and silence filled the house.

  As Saturday evening ended, the moon rode over houses that, one by one, became dark. Madison slept in peace, then, as the hours wore past midnight.

  Sometime after three, Danny Callaghan became aware of a change around him, enough of a change to draw him out of sleep. He opened his eyes—and saw nothing but stars. For a moment, he thought he’d gone night fishing after all. Then he realized he was still in bed and the stars were coming from his own home planetarium, bought from Edmund Scientific for nine dollars. It was a dark blue plastic sphere with a light in it. The plastic was dotted with pinholes in the pattern of the night sky, and when you turned out the lights and turned the planetarium on, magic happened: the heavens appeared all around you.

  He hadn’t turned the planetarium on, though, and that fact made the acid of fear rise in his throat. He opened his mouth to call for his dad, but there was no sound, just a puff of breath. As the stars crossed his face, twisting along his nose and across his eyes, his tears flowed in helpless silence.

  The only sounds were the humming of the planetarium’s motor and the breeze fluttering the front-yard oak. Dan sat up on the bedside. Like a man buttoning his coat for a journey, he buttoned his pajama top, until all four big buttons were neatly closed. A thought whispered to him, “Stand up, look out the window . . .” He clutched the bedsheets with both hands. The old oak shook its leaves at him, and the thoughts whispered, “Come on . . . come on.”

  Then he knew that his toes had touched the floor, and he was up in the flowing stars. Then he floated to the win
dow. As he moved closer, he saw it sliding open. Then he went faster and moved through it. He tried to grab the sash as he passed, but missed. Then he was moving through the limbs of the oak that stood in their front yard, struggling and grabbing at them.

  He got his arms around one, but his body turned upward until his feet were pointing at the sky. He held on with all his might, but the pull got stronger and stronger. “Dad,” he yelled as he was dislodged and drawn into the sky.

  He heard a dog raise a howl, and saw an owl below him, her wings glowing in the moonlight, her voice swept away by the wind.

  He rose screaming and struggling, running in the air, clawing at emptiness. Far below him, moonlight danced on Lake Monona’s baby waves. And then he was among the night clouds, and he flew in their canyons and soared across their hills, and heard their baby thunder muttering.

  The wonder of it silenced his screams at last, but not the tears that poured down his face, or the trembling gasp that came when he slowly passed across the top of a cloud and saw, so very far below, the silver lake and the dots of light that were Madison. He closed his eyes and covered his face with his hands as he moved up toward what looked like a silver island in the sky.

  The island had a round opening in it, dark and black.

  Then Danny was through the round opening. He stopped in the air, then fell to a floor. Opening his eyes, he found himself in darkness, but not absolute darkness. Moonlight sifted in the opening. Far below, he could see the pinpricks of light that marked fishing boats on the lake’s surface.

  A cold sorrow enveloped him. Now, here, he remembered this from before. He did not want the little doctors to touch him ever again. He knew, also, that they would, and soon. He thought of jumping back out through the opening, but what would happen then? He went closer to it, leaned out as far as he dared. “MR. EHMERS! UNCLE FRANK! HELP ME! PLEASE, UNCLE FRANK!”

  A rustling sound. He cringed closer to the edge, wishing he dared jump through. A voice whispered, soft: “Hello?”

  He backed away from the form. He could see white—a white face, loose white clothes.

  “Help me,” the form said.

  It was a girl, he could see that now, could hear it in her voice. She was standing on the far side of the opening in the floor, her face glowing in the faint moonlight that slanted in.

  “Are you from Madison?” she asked. Her voice trembled.

  “Yeah. I’m Danny Callaghan.”

  “I’m Katelyn Burns. I never saw anybody else here before.”

  “Me, neither.”

  “Where are we?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “ ’Cause when I come here I remember I was here before, but then when I go home I don’t remember anymore.” She lowered her head. Her voice dropped to a hesitant murmur. “Do they take your clothes off, too?”

  His face grew hot. He clutched his own shoulders. “Uh-huh.”

  “They do stuff to me that’s weird.”

  “Some kind of operations.”

  Her eyes flashed. “Yes, but this isn’t a hospital!”

  As the two children came together and held each other, they were watched by cold and careful eyes.

  The embrace between the children extended, the girl in her nightgown, the boy in his pajamas stained with yesterday’s oatmeal. It had nothing to do with sex, they were too young. They were like two little birds stolen from the nest, trying to find some safety where there was none.

  “If we dive down to the lake, would that work? Instead of just jumping?” Dan asked Katelyn.

  “I don’t know. Maybe not.”

  “I’ve got a diving merit badge. I’m going to try,” he said.

  She sighed, understood. The children moved along a rickety catwalk, going closer to the opening they had been drawn through. The ship wasn’t high tech. It didn’t even have a way of closing its hatch. It was old and handmade, but the materials involved were far in advance of our own. It was constructed of sticks that would not break or burn, and aluminum foil you could not penetrate even with a bullet. There were no glowing control panels, nothing like Star Trek. Just tinfoil and plywood, and a tin box full of an extraordinary substance mined out of the Earth, that resisted the pull of gravity.

  The creatures hiding near the children knew what they were thinking because they could see not only their fleshy bodies wrapped in their fluttering cloth covers, but also their electric bodies, a shimmering network of lines that coursed through them, the fiery nerves that carried sensation and love and memory, and blue fear racing from the heart.

  They could see, in the heads, lines of gold and green changing to red and purple, and they knew that these were also the colors of fear.

  Katelyn and Dan gazed down at the shimmering, wrinkled surface of the lake.

  “You gonna?” Katelyn asked.

  Danny could imagine Mr. Ehmers on the lake smoking his pipe and watching his line. He took a deep breath. What would Mr. Ehmers see, though—a boy falling out of the sky? Maybe, but probably not. Probably they’d think the splash was just a fish jumping.

  Then he heard the fluttering sound in the dark that meant the things were on the move.

  Katelyn drew close to him. But then the slowest trace of a smile flickered on her lips, and she raised her hand. In it was a match.

  There was buzzing now, urgent, coming closer.

  Katelyn shouted out the opening, “I live in Madison! I live in Madison, Wisconsin!” Her voice carried past the thin walls, echoing loudly, but only the clouds heard it.

  Cupping his hands around his mouth, Dan shouted, “Uncle Frank, help us!”

  “Who’s that?”

  “My uncle. He’s down there fishing.”

  She struck the match, and in its flare something moved behind her. A green glow. As he watched, it resolved itself into the slanted shape of an insect eye, but huge. It was right behind her, just inches away. It glittered and disappeared into the shadows, and then the match burned out, and then something slid up under his shirt and slithered along his chest.

  He heard Katelyn gasp, heard a scream explode out of her and screamed himself, screamed with all his voice and soul. Arms came around him, and a prick like fire penetrated his chest, went deep, made him gag and filled his mouth with a taste like a dead thing smells.

  Now he could not move, could not make a sound. He felt himself being carried, felt his stomach twisting and knotting until gorge came up into his throat.

  He could see nothing, hear nothing except Katelyn breathing in little, shocked cries.

  There came a hand, extended into a faint light, as if it was meant for him to see, a long hand with fingers like naked branches, each tipped by a black, curving claw. In this hand was a kitchen knife with specks of rust on the blade.

  The knife came down on his chest, pricking, then, as the tip of the blade ran along his abdomen, tickling. In the dark nearby, he heard a slicing sound, then a crack, and the bubbling of breath being sucked through liquid. Then a coldness came that extended from his neck down to his groin, and he saw the handle of the knife, which was being used like a saw. As it rose and fell, a coldness grew in his chest. Then, with a sucking sound, two great white things were lifted away from him. He raised his head, looking down at himself. What he saw was so bizarrely unexpected that he just stared. He saw what looked like a wet hamster curled up in the center of his chest, shivering furiously. It lay in a pool of ooze. On either side of it, things like big rubber bladders were expanding and contracting, and hissing as they did so.

  Freezing cold and deadly weak, he fell back, his head hitting the hard iron of the bedstead upon which he had been laid.

  Then stars came, millions of tiny stars all gold and green and speeding like sparks on a windy night. They surrounded the children, swirling around their bodies. They moved with the grace of a vast school of fish, swarming through the body of one child and then into the air, then through the body of the other. Again it happened, and again, and each time the stars invaded the pr
ofound nakedness of their open bodies, the veins and organs glowed. Light poured from their screaming mouths, blasted out of their ears and eyes.

  The children struggled but could not rise, screamed but were ignored. The torture, terrible, somehow beautiful, went on.

  HALFWAY ACROSS THE CONTINENT IN Colorado, a young officer picked up a phone and called Washington. “Sir, we have a glowboy hovering over Madison, Wisconsin.”

  “How long?” came the tired voice of Lieutenant Colonel Michael Wilkes.

  “Twenty-two minutes, sir. Shows no sign of moving.”

  Wilkes glanced at his watch. Pushing four in the morning. “You were right to inform me, uh—”

  “Lieutenant Langford, sir.”

  “Yes. Thank you.” He put down the phone. The spruce-sounding young lieutenant would order a jet up if the glowboy stayed very much longer. Couldn’t have one of the damned things lingering over a major metro area after sunrise. Mike wondered what deviltry it was up to, sighed at his own helplessness, then tossed a pill out of a bottle, knocked it back with a glass of water he kept at his bedside, and hit the sack again.

  He might request Eamon Glass to ask Bob about the stationary glowboy, but probably not. Bob was one of the two living grays they had acquired during an extraordinary incident in the New Mexico desert when one of the grays’ craft had crashed after it had moved into the range of powerful new radars being tested at White Sands. They had not expected these radars to be there, and their ship’s ability to stay aloft had been affected.

  The Air Force had raced to the site of the crash and recovered two grays alive, one dead. Three were a triad, the equivalent of a single human being. Without their third partner to complete their decision-making process, the two that remained alive had been relatively helpless, and the capture had been a brilliant success . . . unless, of course, it was, instead, an even more brilliant deception on the part of the grays.