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Collette looked around nervously; it was as if she was expecting
something to jump out at her. She
had the strangest sense of apprehension, the feeling that she was being
watched. She imagined that
she was an animal in a zoo; that her captors were just out of view, but
watching nonetheless. The
muscles in her neck were taut in anticipation; her heart was pounding a
loud cacophony in her chest. Run,
run, run, the little girl’s voice of her mind prodded her, the one that
always appeared when she was frightened, run for your life.
Stop it, she chided
herself, you are being silly.
Am I? She asked herself
for the fourth time that morning. Am
I really? She looked at the
dark rings under her eyes, feeling more tired than she actually was. She looked in the mirror, her long fingers pulling the skin down
from her dark brown eyes. A flash of movement startled her and she gasped, dropping her
fingers from her face. She
turned around to face the location of the movement she had seen in the
mirror. Am I really being
silly, she asked herself again, certain she had seen something move in the
periphery of her vision darting out of sight down the hallway.
She returned to the mirror
and shook her head slowly. She
dabbed a bit of color to her face and set the makeup down. With a final once-over Collette left the bathroom. That feeling of being watched returned and the hairs on the
nape of her neck stood up in fright. She looked towards the bedroom, towards
(zookeepers)
the empty room and the bed
sitting unused and lonely. She
slowly inched down the hallway and entered the bedroom. The room was how she had left it. The bed was disheveled, the
closet doors shut to her gaze. Stealing
up courage she dropped to her knees and with a quick tug of the comforter
she looked under the bed at the empty floor below. She stood quickly as if to mask her embarrassment. She strode to the closet and ripped the sliding doors open. Her clothes were hung neatly on the wooden rod, nine pairs of shoes
stood side by side, little leather soldiers awaiting orders. She slammed the closet door shut with a loud bang and shook her
head, “I’m losing it.”
She walked into the living
room and sat down on the white leather couch. Bending over she grabbed the shoes sitting next to the coffee table
and pulled them onto her feet. A
glimpse of light shifted in the corner of her eye and she raised her head
to stare at the empty room. She
scColletted the room trying to find what was moving just outside her field of
view, certain that there was something there, just out of view, watching
her every move.
“Who’s there?” a
tentative squeak tinged with nervousness.
She expected no answer and
received none.
Shaking her head in anger
she stormed out the door and raced to her car. She pulled the keys from her purse and unlocked her car. She climbed inside and saw a flash of movement in the rear-view
mirror. Turning her head she
stared in the silver glass and looked at the swaying trees that lined her
street. There was no other
movement on the deserted street, nobody walking their dogs, no children
playing, skipping along the boulevard and singing gaily. Nothing to warrant the uneasy feeling that was dancing in her mind
causing her arms to break out with Goosebumps and the hair on neck to
stand at attention like a soldier waiting for inspection.
Collette plunged the key in
the ignition and started the car. She
backed out of the driveway and turned left, heading to work.
“Do you think she
knows?”
“Hard to tell, probably
not.”
“What should we do?”
“Wait.”
The ringing phone
interrupted her thoughts. She
quickly assisted the customer that called and her mind drifted back to the
last few weeks. The feeling
of being watched had grown in intensity and frequency over the last month. It had started with an uneasy feeling, a tingling at the base of
her spine that slowly escalated as time progressed. At first it was just uneasiness, a chill passing over her. It
was the kind of chill children attributed to “someone walking on your
grave.”
Now it was a tangible
sense of dread, like the unseen eyes were contemplating unkind thoughts. And the glimpses increased as well. The first time she felt the eyes on her she thought she witnessed a
blur of motion darting around a corner. She had run ahead only to find an empty street. Glimpses, she
thought, like seeing into the future and not liking what you find. A flash of movement, a blur of activity, a burst of light, each of
these have appeared to her in growing intensity and increasing regularity.
She stared into the dark
computer monitor and saw what appeared to be a small boy setting a
briefcase on the ground. She
spun around and saw a brown briefcase resting by the water cooler, but no
child was evident. He brow
furrowed as she stared at the briefcase. A sound above her startled her and she looked up at her boss
hovering above her, “have you seen my briefcase?”
Collette looked at him, at the
briefcase, and then back. Her
face twisted into a scowl of confusion, her forehead wrinkled in thought. “Is that it?” she asked, indicating the briefcase with a nod of
her head.
“Yes, thank you.” He crossed the room, grabbed the valise, and turned down the
corridor with just a brief, “thanks, again.”
What the hell is going on?
She thought to herself. Who
put that there? And why? Collette
shivered as she felt eyes on her. She
looked around nervously, searching for the peering eyes. “Who’s there?” she repeated her earlier question. And once again she received no answer.
“I think she knows.”
“Perhaps.”
“Should we do something
about it?”
“Not yet. Let’s watch, see what happens. Perhaps she just suspects.”
Collette drove home, nervously
clutching the steering wheel. She
could feel the cold eyes on her, boring into her as she made her way home. She had been thinking about the child that had moved the briefcase,
wondering if she actually witnessed what she was SURE she did witness. Had a small boy actually moved the case, and if so, why? Or was she imagining things, her mind playing tricks on her,
intermixing reality with fantasy?
If she was imagining the
visions that had escalated in frequency would that explain the unease she
was feeling, the certainty that eyes were following her every move. She recalled how she felt like an animal in a zoo, certain that her
keepers were ever present, watching her every action. She had dismissed that as fancy, calling herself silly for thinking
such a thought, but now, driving through the once again deserted streets,
that feeling returned.
She pondered how an animal
in a zoo must feel, trapped and isolated with keepers watching,
continually hovering just out of sight. She had been to the zoo as a child, of course. Many school trips were taken to study the animals in their natural
habitat. Thinking about that
now made her shake her head, it was hardly natural. Still, she could imagine the animals feeling how she felt, certain
that they were being watched and perhaps not seeing the prying eyes. They would feel how she felt, like there were eyes on them,
watching their every move.
She turned into her
driveway and saw a brief burst of movement just ahead of her. The headlights of her car flashed ahead of her and she saw
what appeared to be human shaped shadow darting in the beam of light only
to disappear around the corner of her house. Her heart beat faster, pounding in her chest. Her throat tightened in fear and she exhaled nervously. She sat in her car, looking around, trying to see any other
movement. Nothing moved but
the gently swaying limbs of the trees that lined the street.
She looked into the
rearview mirror again, but the dark street revealed no secrets. There was nobody moving on the street, no cars returning their
drivers home from a long day at work. She shut off the engine and walked into the house, her mind
flashing images of caged animals in her mind. “Perhaps I’m in a zoo,” she whispered.
“She knows.”
“She suspects.”
“What do you want to
do?”
“Just watch.”
Collette ate dinner in
silence. She was focused on
her plate, but not seeing the food resting there. She was looking at a small man standing just out of view, looking
at her. She noticed him after
sitting down, catching a blur of movement as the man took the remote
control to her television and hiding it under the couch. She turned her head towards him but could see nothing, but when she
stared at her plate, looking out of the corner of her eye she could see
him, standing quietly.
He was about three feet
tall with blonde hair, thin and dirty. He was hidden in the shadows, watching her eat. He had small hands with three long fingers on each. His face was round with large, round eyes, dark and lidless. He was staring at her, watching her in silence.
Collette looked towards him
and could only see the dimly lit hallway, the strange creature unobserved. Returning her gaze to her dinner plate she could once again see his
strange visage eyeing her with curiosity. She kept her gaze on her plate, slowly eating the spaghetti she had
warmed up. Her attention,
however, was focused solely on the alien form watching her.
I am being watched, Collette thought with a mixture of relief and
disgust. She was elated that
the miserable and escalating feeling of being watch was justified but
equally she detested the fact that she WAS being watched. Staring at her plate, eating slowly, she watched her observer. Why? That was the
question she wanted answered, why was she being watched?
A chill ran through her body as the next thought slapped her
consciousness, I am not the only one being watched. She wasn’t one hundred percent sure, of course, but she reasoned
it was the most logical course of action. Why would they, whoever they were…
(zookeepers)
watch her and her alone. It
didn’t make sense. The same
cowardly voice that had bade her to run that morning spoke again, sounding
shrill inside he mind, they are watching you alone, they are aliens and
you are their experiment.
She dropped her fork, the silver tines striking the hardwood floor
with a surprisingly loud thud. She
turned her head to stare at the empty space where the alien form, her
mouth agape. Yes, the shrill
voice cried, it is an alien and you are the experiment. You are alone in the world being watched by aliens. You are an animal in a zoo. The
voice trailed off chanting, zoo, zoo, zoo. Collette shuddered in dread and retrieved her fork from under the
coffee table where it had landed.
She was shaking now, the revelation of her situation frightening
her. She was being watched,
studied by an alien creature. Or
creatures, the frightened little girl voice piped up again, creatures
watching the animal in the zoo. Aliens,
she had to admit there was most assuredly more than one, were watching
her, but why were they watching? And,
she asked herself, more importantly, why her?
The hallway was empty, the alien with the long fingers and lidless
eyes hidden from view. He was
there, she knew that, she could feel his unblinking eyes peering at her,
watching her every move. She
tilted her head, her face contorting in a look of consternation, my
remote. She had seen the
frail creature moving the remote control to her television. She looked around for the black control and after searching for
five minutes found it under the couch.
She looked at the alien, not seeing it, but speaking to it with a
nervous twinge to her voice, “now how did that get there?”
She retrieved the control box and set it on the coffee table next
to the magazines she liked to read. She
gathered up her dinner plate, emptied the mostly uneaten spaghetti into
the trash, and placed the plate in the sink. She did the dishes, her eyes locked on the hallway where she had
first spotted the creature. She
put the dishes away and returned to the living room to ponder her
situation.
Were they gremlins? She asked herself. She recalled how she had glimpsed the alien in the office moving
her boss’ briefcase and now this alien, and she wondered if it was the
same alien, moving her remote control. Were they just miscreants playing mischievous tricks on her and if
so, for what purpose? Her
mind tossed thoughts about randomly, trying to ascertain the truth of her
situation.
The little girl voice returned, alien and zoo, alien and zoo, and
faded again.
Collette sat on the couch and stared into the dark screen of the
television. She didn’t want
to be disturbed with the random bursts of light as the scenes of mindless
sit-coms played out so she left the television set undisturbed. She looked out of the corner of her eye and was shocked to see her
alien observer missing. Where
did he go? She wondered with an exhalation of relief, silently elated that
he was no longer there.
He just moved, she thought, he is still watching you. She knew it to be true, she could still feel eyes peering at her. Since she had seen the fragile alien eyeing her from the hallway
the feeling that she was being watched had escalated until now she felt
like a lion in a zoo with dozens of school-aged children standing just out
of reach watching and laughing as if saying, “we are free and you are
not.”
She leaned back against the back wall of the couch and shut her
eyes. Why? She kept returning to that question. Why me? Why did they
move things? Why were they
watching her and were they watching anybody else? Logic says they were, it would be unreasonable to think that aliens
had landed and were watching her alone; her life wasn’t that exciting.
She looked at the remote
control and leaning forward she picked it up. Why was he, if it was a he, moving the control and why move the
briefcase earlier? It was
like they were prompting action…. Her
thoughts trailed off. That
was precisely what they were doing, prompting a course of action. It was a simple matter of cause and effect that had long been
studied by students in an elementary science class, cause and effect. They were gremlins in one manner, acting the part of a
director. She reasoned that
they were setting the stage for her life, manipulating inanimate objects
to witness her reaction.
Her life was under glass,
the aliens prodding her actions with unseen actions of their own. She understood that she was a puppet in their production, the frail
creatures the puppeteers. Still, she wondered, why did they come to Earth just to study
her? From the quiet recesses
of her thoughts the little girl spoke up again, whispering, you are not on
Earth. You are on their
spacecraft, kidnapped and alone. She
listened to the inner child, learning long ago that the small voice spoke
the truth with childish insight, the thoughts not hampered by logic or
fact; driven instead by emotion and imagination.
And it made sense didn’t
it? She asked herself. Sadly, she admitted that it did.
“She knows.”
“Yes.”
“What do you want to
do?”
“Reprogram her.”
She was lying in bed,
listening to the nocturnal sounds of the still night. The moon was full, shining it’s soft light into the bedroom. She was thinking about her life, about when it was conceivable that
aliens abducted her. The
thought made her chuckle, a forced sound of feigned laughter. Lying still, thinking back to when she had first seen the faintest
glimpses of movement brought her to here, pondering when she was abducted
and placed in a prison of her own. She
was an animal in a zoo, and the aliens were her zookeepers.
The sounds of the
grasshoppers stopped.
Collette listened, straining
to hear any movement in the now silent house. The house was quiet, tomblike. There here, she thought. She was shaking, scared as to what the
unnatural silence would bring. Normally
she would be asleep by now, lost in a world of dreams. Now, knowing that she was being watched, that her every movement
was being recorded as an experiment, she found sleep a distant dream
itself. She doubted she would
ever sleep again.
She knew her captors would
be invisible to her if she looked at them, though she didn’t understand
how that was possible. Collette
stared straight ahead at the closet door, her eyes locked on the round
recessed plate used to open it. Staring
at the closet door she saw two aliens enter her bedroom, moving quietly
towards her. The one closest
to her was carrying a syringe and Collette could see the moonlight reflecting
off of the cold needle.
The closest alien was
bending forward, the needle leading him like a cross threatening a
vampire. Without hesitation
Collette lashed out, praying that they were not as physically intangible as
they were visually. Her fist
struck the alien hard against its throat, sending him sprawling backwards. He flailed impotently, landing against the wall with a solid thump
before lying still.
The second alien stepped
backwards, surprised by the sudden assault. Collette sprung from the bed and kicked the air where the alien was
standing, sending the second alien staggering backwards. She reached forward and grabbed the second alien. He was small, weighing barely sixty pounds and Collette wrapped her
arms around his thin neck. He smelled of spoiled milk, a rotten smell that
caused Collette’s nose to wrinkle in disgust. She held him taut and shouted into the room, “show yourself.”
And the lights came on.
“This is quite
unexpected.”
“Yes.”
“What should we do?”
“Bring her here.”
The door to the bedroom
opened and another alien entered. He
was fully visible, standing just over three feet tall. He had the same odor of the alien Collette kept trapped in her hands,
vile and fetid. His hair was
a matted mess, clinging to his scalp. His large eyes, void of color stared at Collette, “release him,
please,” the alien said. His
voice was high, like that of a prepubescent boy.
“No,” Collette said,
sounding more forceful than she felt.
The moon had faded, the
sun taking its place, lighting the room. It had been an instantaneous change that had frightened Collette,
causing her to increase her stranglehold on the frail alien. The new alien was wearing a gold tunic that was shining in the
sunlight, “you will not be hurt, Collette,” the alien said, holding his
three fingers up in supplication. “We
want to get medical help for the two people you attacked. I promise you will not be harmed.”
Collette looked uncertain,
wondering if she should trust the alien creatures that had been studying
her for who knows how long. Their
motives were less than pure, their actions distrustful and secretive. They knew her name and Collette wondered what else they knew. How long had they been studying her, always out of view with the
exception of the occasional glimpse of movement just beyond the corner of
her eye.
“You will not be
harmed.”
Collette nodded and released the alien who collapsed against the
hardwood floor. Instantly two
more aliens entered the room and began to administer to the aliens that
were lying lifelessly on the floor. The
alien Collette had been choking was roused and escorted out of the room. The second alien, the one lying against the wall opposite the bed
was looked at. The treating
alien shook his head and announced the alien dead.
“Carry the body out of here, please.” The alien turned to Collette, “we know it was an accident.”
Collette was looking at the alien corpse being carried out of the room
with a look of shock, her face fallen. She had killed it. She
looked at the syringe, now visible, lying on the ground. She had attacked out of fear and self-defense, only the frailty of
the alien creatures had escalated the damage administered. Collette sat on the bed, her legs feeling rubbery.
The alien spoke again, “I am to escort you to the control deck. Follow me please.”
Collette nodded mutely, unsure if her legs would support her weight. She climbed wobbly to her feet and kept her hand on the wall as she
walked behind the alien. The alien led her to the kitchen where the refrigerator moved
aside revealing a long, sterile corridor. They turned left and Collette
followed. Doe eyed aliens
watched her pass, their thin lipped mouths agape at the sight of a human
walking unbound through the ship.
The corridor T-ed and they turned right. Various panels were on the wall, blinking lights that did nothing
to reveal their purpose. A
door opened before them, and Collette followed the strange alien into the
elevator. The small room rose
and the doors opened into another hallway. They followed it briefly and another door opened silently into a
large room. There was a
command chair in the middle of the bridge where two aliens were talking in
muted tones. Across the left
wall were displays that indicated the status of the ship, but to Collette the
panels meant nothing.
“Collette,” one of the aliens said, breaking his conversation with
his counterpart. “You have
put us in quite a spot.”
Collette shook her head. “I
put you in a spot,” Collette said, “you have abducted me,” that still
sounded absurd, “put me in a form of a zoo for who knows how long,
watching my every move. Hell,
you prompted my actions with your gremlin-like activity! Well, fuck you!” She
was shouting at the alien whose face remained flat, his lidless eyes not
hinting at any emotion.
“You have every right to be angry.”
Collette glared at him.
“Still,” the alien continued, “we are in quite the pickle. Quite honestly we don’t know what to do.”
“Return me,” Collette’s voice was curt.
“I wish we could.” He
shook his large head, “you are right, we have been studying you. In fact, we have been studying your life for almost a year now. You are not the only person we abducted. Every person you associated with for the last six months is a
captive here, helping us to study you.”
Collette asked the question that she had asked herself time and again,
“why?”
For the first time the alien smiled, his eyes gleaming in the
artificial light, “because you are a leader.”
Collette shook her head. “I
don’t understand.”
And he explained.
Sitting in the center chair Collette was shaking her head; “you
kidnapped me for a coup d’état.”
“Yes. You are a
natural leader, strong-willed and generous. We studied you for months before we abducted you. And we studied you even longer once we had you aboard our ship. You will make a wonderful leader for our people. We were not ready to reveal our plans to you just you. You forced our hand when you began to notice our existence and when
you attacked we had no choice but to reveal ourselves.”
“What would you have done if I hadn’t seen you approaching
me?”
“We would have knocked you out and erased your memory of us
before returning you to the existence we made for you. You would have been none the wiser and we would have then revealed
ourselves when we were ready.”
Anger mixed with curiosity, “what if I refuse?”
His lidless eyes glazed slightly, a thin patina coating the dark
orbs, “I don’t know.”
And Collette accepted. |