Behind the Fire: A Dark Thriller (16 page)

It was the data streams that had snagged in her mind when she’d looked in here earlier, but until she’d thought about John's passion for green living, she hadn’t put it together. It was so glaringly obvious she could kick herself.
How stupid was she?
Stupid for forgetting her phone. Stupid for not bringing an umbrella. Stupid for letting John leave without her.

John’s computer screen, black and silent, said more than any message he could have left her. The computer was never turned off. Even during a power failure, the external battery power source would kick in and keep it live. The data streams it received every second of every day were key to his work. He would pour over the inputs, recording anomalies, working the data, and tabulating results. He couldn’t afford to miss any of it, in case there was an anomalous transaction, as he explained it.

Of course, his colleagues stored the data streams as well but, as John explained to her, they were so important they needed multiple backups across the globe in case any of the files were corrupted.

If the computer was off, then someone had purposely turned it off—and that someone would never be John.

If that wasn’t proof enough, she should have realized, even before she’d entered the house, the lights shouldn't be on in
every
room. In another home that might have been normal, but not when you’re living a
green
lifestyle. “Wasting electricity is a crime against the planet,” John would say, even if Crystal simply forgot to flick off a light switch. Very quickly, she learned to respect his passion on the matter.

The two incongruences—the computer being off and the lights being on—collided in her head. She suddenly felt overwhelmingly lost. John was missing, and she had zero idea of his whereabouts… and somebody had been inside their house. This couldn’t be a coincidence.

Crystal ran for the door, but this time she remembered her phone. As she did, she auto-dialed John, praying he’d pick up—but her call just went to message bank.

It took the police less than ten minutes to arrive. Meanwhile, Crystal waited in the garage with the roller door up, watching the street. Every few minutes she’d call John’s mobile, but he never picked up. Then she started calling hospitals. With each call, furrows etched more deeply into her forehead, as increasingly more worrying scenarios evolved in her mind. Panic had become a bolting horse she’d lost the ability to control.

A persistent, crazy thought kept knocking at the door of her mind: John’s “alien thing.” The more she dismissed it—telling herself she was just overwhelmed and simply out-of-her-head with worry, the more his U.F.O. tales nestled in and wouldn’t budge.

Was it possible?
She wished now she hadn’t stopped listening to him when he’d talked of the U.F.O.s. It was a silly quirk of his, so who would blame her for not paying attention? Then, what if it wasn’t?

Unexpectedly, she remembered something he’d said. It had stuck with her because he’d seemed so sincere when he’d said it. He’d talked about it as if he’d seen it, experienced it. At the time she’d thought what a great storyteller he was.

“They come at night,” he’d said. “It minimizes their exposure.” Something else he’d said had struck her as being somehow logical. She recalled how certain he’d seemed as he said the words: “They come more often during atmospheric disturbances.”

Like rainstorms, she thought. Like tonight.

The attending police had different theories. She answered their questions, growing wearier with each one.

No. Nothing was taken from the house.

No. They had not fought.

No. She’d hadn’t rung his friends. He only had colleagues.

No. They hadn’t had anything to drink tonight.

And, no, No, NO … he’d never done this before.

Finally … yes, she understood it was too soon to start worrying too much. She couldn’t convince them, if they knew John, it was soon enough to start worrying. He would never leave her waiting like that. Something had happened, but she could see she would never convince them.

Then they were gone—just like John was gone—and she was alone. Again.

Sleep did not come until just before dawn. Until then, Crystal lay in their bed, listening to the rain and the wind beat against the window just as relentlessly as the fear beat at her heart. Several times during the night she sprang bolt upright at the nocturnal creaks of the house, sitting there for long minutes, straining to hear if the noise was in fact John’s key in the lock.

Occasionally, a flash of lightning flung back the smothering, thick darkness, and she turned to the empty space beside her and prayed for John to come home. Then, she also begged unknown beings to return her love to her; that seeming just as rational as anything else she’d imagined.

Crystal cursed herself for not asking John what was now the only question in her mind: Do aliens return people after the rain?

John slowly opened his eyes, taking in the dimly lit space surrounding him. Thirst was a razor in his throat. He swallowed, but his mouth was so dry and gritty it didn’t help at all. His mind felt filled with cotton wool, and he immediately realized he’d been drugged. With every ounce of energy he possessed, he willed his mind to clear, for he knew what would come next would require every faculty he possessed.

The room was small. He estimated it at ten by six feet. It felt clinical and carefully designed, so as not to reveal anything about his captors. The walls and floor were made from a uniform polished-silver metal. It was sparsely furnished; the only objects in the room were the chair upon which he was sitting and four cameras, one in each corner of the ceiling.

An instinctive attempt to stand brought the realization his ankles were bound to the legs of the chair by a kind of a soft plastic band. It was like a blue jelly conformed perfectly to the shape of his ankles and the chair. Straining against it caused the chair legs to slide on the metal floor. The sharp sound aggravated the headache he knew must be a reaction to the drug they had used to immobilize him.

A darkened window, which he presumed was a two-way mirror, covered most of the opposite wall. On the other side, a team of them would be watching and studying him. He kicked at his restraints, and felt them give slightly and then return to their pre-existing shape.

He wondered why they’d bothered to immobilize him. Surely they knew he understood there’d be no escape unless they decided to let him go once they were done. He smiled at such absurdity.

Suddenly, a single blinding beam erupted from a small aperture above the screen, illuminating his face, and causing him to turn his head to avoid its sharp glare. A shrill tone resonated through the room so loudly his teeth vibrated. The surprise caused the muscles in his arms to twitch, but he displayed no emotion for them to record. From what he understood, they would certainly be measuring his responses, but he would give them nothing. He’d prepared for this day as much as he’d done everything he could to avoid it.

A monotone, distorted voice, unrecognizable as either male or female, offered a greeting. The sound surrounded him as if there were no speakers, as if the sound emanated uniformly from the walls.

“Do not be afraid. We offer you friendship. No harm will befall you.”

Of course, they
would
say that. He
knew
they would hurt him. They couldn’t help themselves. Their cruel experiments would be justified by calling it science and research.

“We are peaceful beings.”

Another lie.
If they would only settle for peace, maybe he and the others would come willingly. Some of them would give themselves up, make the sacrifice to leave their loved ones, so others could go on, unharmed. His study of these beings, their history, and previous behavior in these circumstances told him otherwise.

“If you help us, you will be freed.”

Another deception. How many did they free?

They never released those they’d captured. They were kept until they died, enduring experiments and tests, as if they were not sentient life, but were instead animals
, their sole purpose to serve as a curiosity.

Their race and his were so alike they could have a shared evolution, albeit on different planets, but culture separated them. Cruelty and violence, embedded in this alien race’s DNA, always surfaced when fear of the unknown provoked them. Compassion was what set them apart. John’s people would never steal them from their loved ones and claim it was for mutual benefit.

“We have your computer data,” the voice said. “What were you using it for?”

John ignored them, his mind wandering back to Crystal, back to the life from which he’d been torn, and to which he would never be returned.

He could blame the rain for his capture; blame his preoccupation with getting back to Crystal—but he’d known this day would inevitably come. In his mind’s eye he saw his wife’s beautiful face when, only a few hours before, he’d turned from her into the night.

“Hurry back,” she’d said.

They won’t let me back, my love.

Regret pierced his heart. She would never know what had happened, and he knew she would suffer even more because of it.

He could have saved her from that pain and cruelty if he’d only shared his secret. He was too afraid he’d lose her.

He’d tried once. ‘They come during atmospheric disturbances,” he’d told her. She’d laughed and said, “You scientists with your big words. Why don’t you just say a storm?”

The way she’d smiled and laughed at him had almost broken his heart; he couldn’t do it, couldn’t destroy her happiness. He’d hoped the one sentence would be enough, if she would only remember it:
They come during storms.

The disembodied voice invaded his thoughts. He detected a note of frustration, perhaps at his refusal to answer its questions. The voice began to repeat the same question, as if it were running a broken, computerized loop.

Already he was weary of them and their pointless questions. These beings comprehended so little. They were unable to even imagine what he knew; therefore, they would never ask the right questions. No matter how many of his race they took, they could never comprehend the truth, even though it was staring them in the face.

Instead of asking about his planet, humanity should be asking about their own world. How long could they treat Earth as if it were their slave? Their true fight was with themselves and the harm they had inflicted on themselves. It wasn’t with him or his fellow colonizers. Even though it was increasingly obvious Earth was now rebelling against their control, they still continued on, ignorantly confident in their superiority to govern that which was beyond their limited resources or comprehension to control.

His people were not warriors or invaders, as Earth’s occupants feared. The humans’ blind belief war could be their only mission was based more on their own history than on his world’s.

Put simply, his people were scavengers of abandoned worlds, so often destroyed by technology and disregard. It was surprising how many civilizations misunderstood the precarious symbiotic relationship they shared with nature. So many different worlds they’d taken, but always it was a version of the same story.

His early reconnaissance party had simply come to wait, scattered across the globe, analyzing and sharing their data. If these humans had listened to their world, they might have foreseen their time left was growing short, their world failing and dying. Soon even the rain would stop. His people’s wait was almost over. After the rain, their turn would come.

A reoccurring question directed at a writer is: do you get your ideas from dreams? Wouldn’t that be wonderful! Sadly, it happens rarely.

One night I did awaken from a very vivid dream. Years later, I still remember it. In the dream, I’d left a theater and lost my husband in the rain, just like Crystal. When I went searching for him, I came across a crowd of people in a parking lot who informed me we were in the middle of an alien invasion. My immediate thought was I needed to find him before the aliens took him. If they hadn’t already. I never did find him in the dream, and when I awoke, a feeling of intense loss gripped me.

What stuck with me was the dream’s mood. It felt dark, foreboding, and claustrophobic. This mood is what I wanted to capture with
Gone
. As I set about writing the story, I knew I wanted it to be about alien abduction but, also, about secrets. How they harm you and the price we pay to keep them. I never imagined in the end, John
was
the alien. That came as a wonderful surprise even to me, after he was captured and interrogated.

When I was younger, alien abductions fascinated me, and I read many books on the subject. For the longest time, I believed the claims of author Whitley Strieber, who said he’d been the victim of multiple alien abductions. He wrote many books on the subject.

Now I’m older, I’m no longer a great believer. Between running a busy household and fitting in my writing, I haven’t the time to worry about aliens invading or abducting us.