by Stanley Gray
He saw the toilet and sat, feeling something heavy emerging from its cocoon in the forested lands of his soul, like some dark butterfly. He sat for a few moments, trying to gather his thoughts. He noticed that there were damaged tiles on the floor, and idly wondered if the house had some unreported water damage. Finally, hands shaking, he returned to his phone.
There, in front of him, was Sharon Stone. Not the Sharon Stone. But a random girl from Nebraska who’d fallen in love with a stranger. A stranger who happened to be Alan Grunke.
Apparently, she had traveled all over, trying to find him. Over the course of several years, she’d gotten closer and closer, only to be thwarted at each turn as she sensed her mission nearing its completion. She’d been in Long Beach just this past May, as he and Dale packed up and prepared for their move to Klamath Falls. A co-worker at the NASA Office of Inspector General’s office had inadvertently told Sharon where to go next when she pretended to be Alan’s fiancé.
A churning sensation gnawed at his gut and disrupted his equilibrium. Alan scrolled through photos of Sharon and he dancing, singing, stumbling through an alley, vomiting, and…kissing.
Of all the things he saw, the thing that surprised him most was that latter fact.
“What…” he started thinking aloud, wiping his face and allowing the sentence to collapse into a fragmented silence. Instead of felling happy, even proud, Alan experienced a profound displeasure and sense of disbelief. He felt violated. Betrayed. And the person who had victimized him was…himself. Alan enjoyed a relatively comfortable, high-paying government job that he thoroughly enjoyed. He helped people. If some of those pictures of him, face slicked with sweat as he wiped vomit spackle of his grinning face in the sallow, jaundiced shadow of a streetlamp….if those got out and went viral, he could easily find he was expendable.
More importantly, he operated within the realm of science. Science connotes order. Helping maintain and restore order to a chaotic world proved highly satisfying to Alan.
Alan Grunke hated feeling out of control.
Being drunk and fornicating with strangers is the antithesis of being in control.
Moving through his text messages, he saw that Sharon and he had exchanged several text messages throughout the evening and early morning. Taking a deep breath, Alan began to compose a message that hurt. His eyes began to seem heavy and moist. His chest felt tight. But, still, he focused on the screen in front of him and the words his fingers conjured up seemingly of their own volition. He knew he needed to end this. But, did it have to be this hard?
His finger lingered on the small triangle that would deliver the message out into the ether and pierce the heart of his driven paramour. Finally, he hit send.
Almost immediately, his phone began ringing.
Alan stared down at his phone, mouth slack, his vision blurred by the saline moisture welling up in his eyes. He wanted to answer. Yet, the fear possessing him inflicted a mortal wound on the small part of him that threatened to defect to the forces of hope and possibility. The buzzing finally stopped. His screen returned to normal.
Sinking to the floor, Alan trembled. He wondered if he had made the right decision.
It wasn’t often that he experienced a lack of confidence. Or, at least, it wasn’t often he felt aware of such a blatant lack of trust in himself. Alan was aware his desire to control everything around him could be construed as a supreme paucity of self-respect. He just didn’t usually care to think about that.
His phone rang again. The sound made Alan jump. He glared at the device as he huddled there on the floor, knees to his chest, face and upper body clammy and red. He appeared almost vulture-like. Disregarding it, he collapsed into a mercurial silence. He was brooding.
Suddenly, the house shook. The dresser wobbled, swaying violently from side as to side. The tree outside the window jammed itself against the glass. Alan’s heart raced as he fell to the floor and instinctively covered his head. Even as the adrenaline inundated his veins and thoughts raced through his mind, he couldn’t help but idly wander in the midst of it all if the little red button had finally been pushed.
Everyone knew that asshole in the White House possessed a temper. A bully with a nuclear arsenal. A childish imposter playing cops and robbers with real people. A real recipe for success.
Things began to settle down, and Alan peered out from under his arm. He saw clothes and bedding piled in an odd arrangement, but, other than that, from his limited vantage point, things seemed relatively unscathed. Sitting up, his eyes felt heavy. He glanced around, a headache beginning to form behind his eyes, and saw that the dresser had fallen. The drawers that had been propped against the wall towards one corner were all over the room. One of his duffel bags had expurgated its contents and lay on the floor, one black flap laying limp as a dead slug on the carpet.
Steadying himself with one shaking arm, he stood. In a way, he wanted to be thankful for this welcome diversion. One can only take so much self-loathing.
He hobbled downstairs, holding on to the wooden railing because he couldn’t quite trust his strength at the moment. He felt weak and dizzy. His vision seemed a bit distorted. Something felt…off.
All of the many boxes littering his downstairs had disgorged their contents. Stuff lay everywhere in a chaotic display that could possibly be likened to abstract modern art. His red vacuum, without the hose, sat upside-down by the kitchen entryway. Photos of his family poked out from piles of storage. Alan bent down, groaning softly, and picked one of the photos up. Framed with a cheap brown plastic frame, the aged picture displayed a smiling twelve-year-old Alan. In the scene with him were his mom and dad. His dad rested one hand gently on his mother’s hip. His parents were not smiling.
Alan ran his finger over the broken glass. His brow furrowed. He lingered on the somber expressions of his parents.
He heard the dogs from next door begin to bark. The barks seemed loud, vicious even. Alan walked to the back patio window and looked outside. It seemed unusual for the Clark’s dogs to act like that. Of course, the neighborhood didn’t usually experience paroxysms mid-day, either.
Nothing looked amiss. The wooden fence in his rented backyard seemed slanted and askew. But, other than that, all seemed well. Except for the dogs.
Trying to ignore them, Alan returned his attention to assessing any damage to his stuff. He tried to remember what his insurance policies were, what they covered, all of that stuff. He’d been through an earthquake a few times, having lived in California for some time. Though he’d never experienced anything quite like this before.
Something made Alan look up. He glanced around, shaking his head and beginning to wonder if maybe he were finally losing his mind. “Sheesh.” he said. Then he heard a noise. He tilted his head and looked at the large window leading to the back deck. A small owl sat there, staring at him with its odd, disconcerting yellow eyes. Brown and white with spots on its head and an odd pattern on its belly, the beast appeared to be watching him intently.
Then, it flew away. The rapidity with which it moved startled Alan.
He got up and walked to the glass door, gazing into the distance that had swallowed this avian visitor. Growing pensive and introspective, Alan paced in a small, tight straight line. His hands locked behind his back, head tilted downward, eyes absent, Alan tried to think. He needed to focus.
He jumped. Blushing, he reached up as if to cover his lips. He trembled. The shriek that had escaped from somewhere primal and deep inside him still rang in his ears. Smiling, he glanced towards the deck again, fully expecting to see the owl again. Life in southern Oregon.
“What…” he said. Alan stood. He marched the few steps to the door and pulled the small wooden handle. The door made a slight swooshing sound as it opened.
He felt nauseated. A sense of disorientation overwhelmed his senses. His vision narrowed, and he felt wobbly. Reaching out, he braced himself against the glass door. With one hand, he tried to cover one ear.
A pier
cing, angry buzzing filled his brain. He could feel the ringing in his teeth. A headache erupted directly behind Alan’s eyes. Pain heckled him as it poked one belligerent finger into the delicate space at the bridge of his nose.
Then, just as suddenly and violently as it had ambushed him, the various sensations stopped.
Alan blinked. He looked around, his mouth slack and a thick pool of saliva glistening on his chin. Words tried to form themselves in his brain, but evaporated like spit on hot July asphalt. A burst of wind swept in and gave him a chill.
The one thing Alan was aware of was the sensation that he was being watched. A presence was there, and it wanted him to know it. Alan’s heart raced around turn 2, ready for the checkered flag. It didn’t help that he seemed paralyzed, rooted to the very spot where he dumbly stood.
Chapter 3
He almost shit himself.
A small creature awkwardly presented itself to him.
Blueish and thin, with large black eyes that somehow seemed sad, the…thing walked on two comically skinny legs. The head was elongated, with slits above a small slash that may have been a mouth. It possessed gangly arms that seemed somehow awkward.
[Please don’t hurt me.]
Alan blinked repeatedly. His mouth felt dry. He felt feverish, despite the fall wind breezing by. He doubted he could hurt anything, at this point. His arms seemed to weigh a ton a piece. His legs were glued to the entryway. “Did…you…what…” Alan stuttered. “Fuck.” he said.
[Is it okay…if I call you Alan?]
Alan emitted a sound. It was the sound of a trapped predator. He knew. He knew that this was an alien. He also understood, perhaps intuited, that his entire world was about to change irrevocably. He cleared his throat. “Umm…what should I call you?”
[Please help me.]
Alan could not resist the urge to laugh. The sound escaped, and he reached out instinctively as if he could capture the mirth with his fists.
His phone rang.
Alan stared in the direction that the sound came from. Looking from the alien in his backyard to the vague outline of his phone, he tried to make the most minute of decisions. It seemed that every move, however slight, required extraordinary effort and came with dire implications. A strong desire to sleep feel on him.
He plucked the device from his pocket and answered it. “Hello.” he said.
“Alan, it’s Dale. I don’t know what you’re fuckin’ doin’, but you need to get down to our humble little office…NOW.” Alan’s assistant and friend said.
“What…what’s going on?” he asked.
“You mean you didn’t feel the tremors? Look, you need to skedaddle. I can fill you in when you get here.” Dale said. A television or something played loudly in the background, and Dale shouted in part to compete with whatever it was he had on.
“I think you’re overreacting,”
“Get your ass down here.” Dale interrupted. Then the line went dead.
Alan stood there, staring at an alien as he tried to figure out what to do. Nothing could have prepared him for this. That fact, oddly enough, helped calm him.
He fidgeted, moving his hands around in the air and on his face, as if some SoHo artist trying to decipher the layers of nuance in a surrealist painting. He waited, smirking, for someone to jump out from behind a corner and yell surprise. Alan felt compelled to keep it together by that thought. Though he intuited the self-deception. His rapid heartbeat attested to the fact he knew he was fucked.
Nonetheless, Alan Grunke felt no choice but to indulge the naivety and optimism lurking there. He continued to smirk and glance around expectantly. He resisted the violent urge to surrender control of his emotions in the face of this…
[Please help me.]
Alan raised his hands to his ears. He clenched his jaw so tight, he felt a tear course down his cheek. He wanted to breathe, but seemed unable to because of the tension rooting him to where he stood, transfixed and rendered inchoate by the alien in his living room.
Surrounded by boxes, the brick mantlepiece bare, he felt confined. Like a cornered animal. He wanted to escape. Needed to. But it wasn’t just the physical barriers, the clutter and debris stacked in flimsy boxes that collectively made him who he was. Some arcane force held him there. He could sense it, working behind the scenes in his overwhelmed cognitive sphere. The anonymous alien who’d seemingly stumbled into his life was somehow controlling his brain.
He groaned. Sinking down into the only available chair, he tried to breathe and relax. He fought to think. Behind him, there was an alien. A strange and otherworldly being. And…it was in danger. Turning, he again confronted the entity with his gaze. This time, Alan appeared more confident. He took time to appraise the creature. Black eyes, vaguely almond-shaped, with a waxy, clear skin that had a vaguely blueish tint, as if it were hypoxic. A few organs’ silhouettes seemed slightly visible underneath the clammy surface. It had five finger-like appendages on each hand.
Alan jumped. His phone rang again. He ignored it.
“What do I call you?” he asked.
[Will you help me?]
“Yes, but I need to know your name. Please hurry.” Alan said.
[You may call me whatever you like, Alan. I have many names.] it said.
“Well,” Alan sighed. He felt at a loss for words. “Well, just stay here and try to hide…if anyone comes around.” he said. He shuddered. He didn’t want to think about anyone “coming around,” his home.
Because no other words could summon themselves from the whispering cauldron of his besieged mind, he stood, walked to the door, grabbed his coat and left. He had a possible crash site to investigate.
He raced to the new office in his old Volkswagen Rabbit. The air seemed cold and brisk, laced with negative nuances and filled with threats of an impending storm as he walked out the door.
As he turned the corner, he almost wrecked. Jamming his foot on the brakes so hard, it nearly broke his foot, he held out one hand to brace his forward momentum towards the wheel and dashboard. His body jolted back. He tried to breathe, wheezing as he stared at the bumper in front of him. He found not one ounce of amusement at the sticker that read: “how’s my driving?” As Alan calmed down and regained some ability to focus, he saw that a long line of cars meandered off into the distance in front of him, snarling traffic.
Alan’s phone began to vibrate. He fumbled around, shifting positions multiple times in a vain effort to retrieve the device before finally succeeding. He scrabbled about for a few seconds for his Bluetooth headset before finally surrendering. He pressed the button to put it on speaker, and did his best to keep one eye on the road. “What’s up?” he said.
“WHAT’S UP?! WHAT’S UP?! My fuckin’ blood pressure. That’s what’s up. Where in the hell are you?” Dale shouted.
Alan took a breath. He knew his co-worker was panicking. He couldn’t really blame him.
“I am in a massive traffic jam on 97. I’m sorry, Dale.” Alan said. He silently cursed the small town. His bosses at the OIG had thought it would be a good site. Near an air base, it offered relative anonymity and lack of oversight, while being conveniently proximate to many of the nation’s UFO sightings. Of course, it only had two or three main roads, so when an ant farted, traffic could be eerily similar to what one could expect on any given weekday back in SoCal.
“I’m going to have KPD dispatch someone out there to pick you up. We’ll figure out what to do with your rusty piece of shit car later. For now, just ditch it on the side, if the locals will let you.” Dale said.
“Dale, I’m not leaving my car.” Alan responded.
“Yes, yes, you are, boss. Shit is already hitting the proverbial fan.” Dale said. Then he did what he normally does in such instances: he hung up.
Alan heard sirens in the distance. He looked up and noticed a faint blot of black on the horizon that indicated a helicopter. Sitting back, he rested his head against the cream-colored leather headrest and closed his eyes. He tri
ed to think of a time when life were more simple. He drew a blank.
Without opening his eyes, he opened his window, relishing the incisive whine of the bitter air as it swept in to cool him. He focused on the refreshing alpine aromas.
A violent honk riled him from his reverie, and he put the old car into gear and crept forward a few feet before returning to the game of idling.
Alan reached forward and searched through his glovebox and stash of CDs. He wanted to find a good audiobook or something, perhaps a Lawrence Sanders story. That McNally guy, boy, could he be a real hoot. Grunting, he slumped back and again closed his eyes. Life decreed that he not even be granted the merest, most simple of escapes. So, he would try to bear it. His mind flitted back to the surreal scenario he’d faced shortly before his departure. An alien was now in his home, presumably trying to avoid capture.
Alan had to smile. He opened one eye for a second to scan the horizon, just to make sure he didn’t need to move or get ready to jump in a squad car. An alien. In his home.
Alan worked for the NASA Office of Inspector General’s Office. In a very real sense, he was a cop. He possessed the power to arrest people. What Alan Grunke did was investigate UFO claims. The rationale behind this mission was that, as things like SETI had impacts on the agency and its employees, any claims needed to be looked into, to determine if they were fraudulent. Of course, what he really did was act as sort of a lesser-seen PR liaison, as well as a debunker. Very rarely did he ever even invoke a threat of arrest. Normally, he simply tracked military flight records and relayed data back to local reporters.
But, he had an alien in his home.
There was nothing to debunk. There was no fraud. A fucking extraterrestrial had spoken to him telepathically in his own living room.
And, yet, he was about to be escorted by a fellow law enforcement official into town, so that he could go into his tiny office across from the historic brick courthouse and pretend aliens didn’t exist.