“What do you think?”
“I know.”
Bill was shocked by Paul’s answer. “What the hell do you mean you know?”
“I mean I know. But Dave and Sharon don’t believe me. They think I’m crazy. Sharon was nearly hysterical when her folks came down here and picked her up last week. But all they know is the official version. Sharon’s too embarrassed to tell them what I told her and Dave, and she refuses to talk to me. We’d been having some problems before this happened ... she thought I was drinking too much. So, I called you. I had nowhere else to turn.”
Faint fingers of light were beginning to streak the eastern sky.
“Paul, what happened to Cindy?”
“She was abducted by an unidentified flying object. A UFO.”
CHAPTER 5
In the moments of silence that followed, Bill felt his body grow lighter. The room grew larger and the distance between Paul and him greater.
Bill flushed with anger and the room and his body returned to normal.
“Goddammit, Paul, what the fuck are you talking about? You call me all the way out here to tell me some science fiction fantasy? What kind of shit are you trying to pull?” By now Bill was shouting.
Paul suddenly began to sob and buried his face in both hands. Bill got up and went to the kitchen for some more coffee.
He returned to the living room and began to pace in front of Paul and the sofa. He didn’t know whether to be angry or sad, or both.
Paul suddenly stood up and turned toward Bill. When he spoke, his voice was hard and cold.
“Listen, we’ve known each other nearly all our lives. Do you really think I would bring you out here to lie to you? Have we ever lied to each other? I know what I saw. And if you won’t believe me, or at least hear me out, then I’m lost. I have nowhere to turn.”
Bill’s anger had cooled a bit. It was true. He and Paul had never bullshitted each other.
“I’m sorry, Paul. But you can understand my reaction. Sit down. Tell me what happened.” Or what you think happened.
“That Friday night when I came home late—it was almost midnight—I had been drinking. But I swear I wasn’t drunk. As I started to turn down our lane, I noticed lights over the house. They seemed to pulsate, red and green and white. My first thought was that it was a helicopter, but there wasn’t any noise.
“Then when I drove into the clearing, the whole house was bathed in light. It was like a movie crew had set up lights around the house. When my eyes adjusted a little to the brightness, I looked up and that’s when I saw it. A big goddamn machine shaped like a triangle, bigger than the house and the clearing, was just hanging there in the sky about a hundred feet over the roof. Again, I thought it must be a helicopter, but it was too big and there was still no sound. It was absolutely silent.
“I was scared shitless. I jumped out of the car and started to run toward the front door, screaming for Sharon. Before I could get five steps, I was hit by some kind of electricity. I fell on my back unable to move or make a sound. But I could still see the machine and the east side of the house, where Cindy’s room is upstairs. Then I noticed a blue beam of light about two feet wide running from the machine, or whatever in the hell it was, to Cindy’s window. Cindy was floating inside that beam of blue light, in the air, between her window and the object. I could see her clearly. She was asleep in her green pajamas, her arms at her side.
“I must have passed out, because when I awoke about fifteen or twenty minutes later everything appeared normal. I was lying on my back in the clearing. No machine. No lights. I could move, although I felt stiff and sick to my stomach, and dazed. It was about twenty minutes past midnight.
“I ran into the house screaming for Cindy and Sharon. Cindy’s bed was empty, and Sharon was sound asleep. But she was sleeping like she was drugged. I had a hard time waking her up and when she did get up, she was confused and groggy. There was a funny smell in the house, kind of like burned cinnamon, but it was gone in a few minutes. We searched the house and yard. We even looked into the edge of the woods and out on the road before we called Dave’s office. He and his deputies also searched the house and the yard, as well as the woods.
“When I told Sharon, and later Dave, what I had seen, their reactions were like yours—only worse. I had liquor on my breath and they both accused me of being drunk and imagining the whole thing. Nobody in this area reported anything strange that night. I think for a time Dave suspected me of having something to do with Cindy’s disappearance. But I was with some teachers from the school until right before I drove home, and Sharon said she had looked in on Cindy at about eleven-thirty. I’ve agreed to take a lie detector test this week, but Dave said they’re not always reliable.
“I’ve lost my daughter and my wife. I’m telling you what I saw. I say it was a UFO because I don’t know what else to call it.” His voice dropped. “Please help me.”
The dark shadows around the house began to retreat in the face of the early morning sun. The fire had burned down to a pile of glowing embers.
Bill looked at Paul and then at his cup of coffee, now cold.
“Do you need to call the school and tell them you won’t be in today?”
“No. I’m on a leave of absence until this is cleared up one way or the other.”
“Do you need money?”
“No. They were very nice. They’re still paying me.”
Sunlight was slanting through the kitchen window.
“Bill?”
“Yes?”
“There are two things I haven’t told you. Or anyone else.”
“What are they?”
“When Cindy was in that blue light, she wasn’t being pulled from her window. She was floating toward the window. And just before I passed out, I heard something in the distance: the heavy thumping sound of a helicopter.”
✳
It took Bill a few seconds for Paul’s revelation to sink in. Suddenly, nothing seemed to make sense.
“I don’t understand. If she was floating toward the house … the window … why wasn’t she there when you finally came to and went into the house?”
Paul started to tear up again but checked himself.
“I don’t know. I’m just telling you what I saw. I know it sounds crazy. Maybe I am crazy.”
Things aren’t fitting together here. Or else there are some missing pieces. If the UFO was returning Cindy to her room, where was she when Paul ran into the house a few minutes later? And what about the helicopter he said he heard? Did he mistake a helicopter for a UFO, which seems likely? But what the hell was a helicopter doing out here in the middle of the night? Was the beam of blue light simply a reflection off a cable or something? But why would someone in a helicopter be abducting, or returning, Cindy?
CHAPTER 6
Bill unpacked his duffel and then shaved and showered. Paul, worn out, slept on the sofa. Bill booted up his laptop to check his e-mail, but there was no WiFi signal. He was pretty sure Paul had a computer, but apparently not WiFi. He would check with him later.
Bill left a note on the kitchen table saying that he had gone into town and would return in the middle of the afternoon. He suggested they go out for dinner that evening. Paul had given him a house key, which Bill stuck in his wallet.