Lieutenant Lindsay Vickers was driving southwest on Highway 64 from Dahlgren, on her way to her grandparents cottage at Smith Mountain Lake.
Her father, Admiral Maddox, kept her on a tight leash since her return from Nautilus a month before. Lindsay had undergone gene therapy at the Solar Warden medical facility located at the Program’s base in Tooele, Utah. There, the DNA tampering she’d experienced was reversed.
Admiral Maddox was concerned that the enemy wasn’t finished with his daughter just yet. After the discovery of the implant and the manipulation of her genome, he was worried the enemy may attempt to recapture Lindsay. As a precaution, her father assigned her a protective detail, and he also had a shield generator installed in her home to preclude any chance of her being abducted while she slept, a practice common with the enemy. She was required to report to him her every move. If she wanted to go to Starbucks for a latte, she had to inform him. He also issued her a portable distress beacon she kept in her purse, namely because she refused to have a subcutaneous version inserted under her skin. It struck too close to home, especially after the discovery of the implant.
Lindsay hated it. All of it. She felt like a prisoner in her own home, and with her detail always within arms-reach, she had no privacy. No life. She just wanted to get away. She told her father she was going to visit her Nanny and Pa at Smith Mountain Lake. She would be back in a few days. The detail could accompany her, but they had to keep their distance. She needed some breathing room.
Lindsay tried to forget what happened to her on the mother ship. The enemy abused her and violated her in unspeakable ways, altered the very building blocks of her fundamental nature, debased and despoiled her body. She was ordered to attend counselling twice a week, but the psychiatrist was frustrated with her refusal to discuss her experience. Her torture–because that’s what it was. Regardless, he was less than helpful. Too much psycho-babble.
Lindsay dreaded falling sleep. Every time she did, the nightmares would start. She was back onboard that mother ship. Back where they captured her, where they experimented on her. Those little gray-skinned monsters with their instruments, and their cold, black lifeless eyes, boring into her. All of it, boring into her. Every time she drifted off to sleep, she was right back there.
She tried sleep-aids and sedatives, but they only made things worse. She would be trapped in the nightmare, unable to awake, and when she finally did, Lindsay would rouse screaming in horror, more traumatized than before.
It was always the same. Lindsay’s dreams were identical. She was naked, lying on that cold, steel table in the examination room on the enemy mother ship. She was paralyzed, unable to move a muscle, except for her eyes. They always made sure you could still look around and be able to see what they were doing to you. It was as if they gained some sort of twisted, perverse pleasure out of letting you watch as they tortured you.
In Lindsay’s dream, the grays would enter the room and mill about her. They would stare at her with those huge, black, lifeless eyes, like a gaggle of perverted little pre-teen boys. Then they would touch her. All of them with their long spindly fingers, moving all over her entire body, over every curve, every crease, every crevice. It wasn’t like they were groping her–it was more like they were searching for something on her skin. Regardless, it was beyond creepy, and it made her want to scream at them to stop. But alas, she couldn’t speak. Her vocal cords, along with the rest of her body, were paralyzed. All she could do was watch and endure the experience.
Then they would bring out their instruments, making sure she could see each of them. All of the tools they were preparing to violate her with. They would proceed with their experiments, and it would take hours. Each probe, each invasion, each intrusion was more painful and humiliating than the one before.
Finally, one of the grays, taller than most, would pick up a long metal needle. In her dream, it would insert the probe into her navel, inseminating her. Her belly would begin to enlarge. She could feel something growing inside her. Whatever it was, it moved around within, kicking and scratching her from the inside. As it got larger, it began to get painful.
Unbelievably painful.
The nightmare would continue as whatever was in her womb would begin to fight, to attempt to claw its way out. The pain would increase, becoming unbearable. Every nerve, every point on her body was on fire with searing agony. Lindsay would try to scream, to beg the grays to make it stop. They would just stand there and watch. Stare at her with their blank, emotionless expressions as her stomach grew larger and larger.
Ever larger.
Through her tear-soaked agony, Lindsay could see everything was being observed from the shadowy corner of the room by a large, white owl with demonic black eyes that matched those disgusting little grays.
Then, when she was sure her mid-section would explode, a huge reptilian would enter the examination room carrying a long knife. A hideous, alien-looking blade with a vicious, serrated edge. It would stand over her and peer down at her growing, distended abdomen. It would spread what lips it had in a gruesome smile, enjoying her extreme discomfort, reveling in the pain she was experiencing … the unthinkable, unbearable pain.
Just when Lindsay thought she could endure no more, the reptilian would lay the edge of the massive, otherworldly blade on the top of her medicine ball-sized abdomen and with a sudden, violent motion, slice her open. To her horror, a large, bloated infant reptilian would crawl out from the bloody, gaping wound in her belly.
But this reptilian newborn was different. It was a hybrid … part reptilian, part human. It had a human head and hands, but no tail. It was still covered with scales, but instead of human eyes, it had the vertical-slit pupils of a lacertilian. As hideous as the reptilians were, this abomination was worse … far worse.
As the dream continued, the adult reptilian would grab the infant by an ankle and convey its bloody, writhing form from the room while Lindsay lay helpless on the table, flayed wide like a filleted fish. With the pain unabated, the grays would then seal the caesarian wound on her stomach.
Then, as dreams were wont to do, suddenly, she was back to normal, as if nothing had happened. Dreams were like that. The pain was gone, but she was still restrained. The taller gray would step forward and insert the probe once more into her navel, and while the owl would cant its head sideways, the horror would begin all over again …
Lindsay couldn’t allow herself to sleep, not even for a moment. Experiencing that dream once was horrific enough, but she couldn’t bear to experience the same nightmare over and over again, every time she drifted off into a fitful slumber.
She hated going home to an empty house. She hated being alone. She took one of the V.I.P. guest rooms at Naval Space Command instead, but she was still alone. She couldn’t relax, not for a moment. Every time she closed her eyes she could see those minions, those little gray-skinned ogres with their big, black, almond-shaped eyes. Lifeless, emotionless eyes. She would shudder when she recalled how they hovered over her as she lay naked and paralyzed on that cold, metallic examination table. Just like in her nightmare. Looming over her with their probes and their instruments, poking and prodding her, stabbing at her, impaling her, penetrating her, changing her, altering her to suit their demonic purposes.
She recalled how they inserted the implant in her neck without any anesthetic. She could still feel the searing pain as she attempted to scream in agony while they cut her and forced the tiny nodule into her flesh, down next to her spine.
In an act of pure instinct that mimicked swatting an insect, Lindsay grabbed the back of her neck and rubbed the spot. The implant was now gone, removed by the medical team aboard Nautilus, and the wound was healed without so much as a scar. But the pain of the experience lingered, a parting gift from those little gray-skinned fiends and their ophidian overlords.
No matter where she went, Lindsay never felt safe, not even while she was onboard Nautilus. No, that’s not quite right. There was one moment when she felt safe, when she could relax and she knew nothing could harm her. That was when Scarecrow, Commander Richardson came to see her in sick bay. When he put his hand on her arm. At that moment, she knew nothing could hurt her. But now he was gone, off with his Major Cooper, while Lindsay was left to herself, left alone with her fear and her nightmares. Those hideous nightmares.
It wasn’t fair.
As Lindsay drove down the highway absorbed in her thoughts, she hadn’t noticed it was now dark. She had gone southwest on 64 through Fredericksburg, then due south on 29 past Charlottesville and Lynchburg, and finally west on 460 to Smith Mountain Lake, a stretch of road she hated for being remote and isolated. She glanced in the rear-view mirror to see the headlights of her detail, still tailing her like a pair of faithful hounds. It didn’t matter–she didn’t feel any safer knowing they were there. At this point, she was running on adrenaline alone. She hadn’t slept in days, and she was functioning on pure willpower to keep from crashing–to keep from an emotional breakdown.
Lindsay hoped that time with her grandparents might help her relax, at least enough to get some sleep. Sleep without the nightmare. Their home had always been a safe haven for her, a place where she could leave the cares of the world behind and let someone else take care of her. She’d spent a lot of time with Nannie and Pa after she’d lost her husband Craig. She longed for someone who wouldn’t judge her. Someone who would just listen, offer a kiss on the cheek, and a hug. A place where she could enjoy a hot cup of Nannie’s herbal tea and a bowl of her warm apple cobbler fresh out of the oven, curled up on the big, soft sofa in front of their massive river-rock fireplace, wrapped in one of Nannie’s throws that always smelled like her.
Lindsay was jolted out of her musings when the engine in her Lexus began to sputter. A wave of icy fear swept over her as she shot a glance in the rearview mirror to discover her detail’s headlights were gone. Panic threatened to overwhelm her as the engine coughed and died, then the entire electrical system on her car failed. She knew exactly what was happening while she struggled to guide the car to the side of the road. Terror swept across her mind as the vehicle coasted to a stop.
“No! No! No!” Lindsay screamed. “No! No! This can’t be happeninggg!” She dug into her purse for the distress beacon and pressed the panic button, but it was inert. She pulled out her cell phone. It was dark as well. She was alone.
She’d always been alone.
A beam of light flashed down onto the highway, startling the young female Lieutenant. Like an intrusive knife, it pierced the early evening darkness about 100 feet in front of her car as it shone down, illuminating the dull, leaden, autumn pavement. With the same sudden abruptness, the silhouettes of four small grays materialized in front of the beam. Then, in their signature staccato gait, the quartet of juvenile-sized intruders lurched forward, stepping away from the bright beam as they headed for Lindsay’s car. The stench of sulphur hung in the air, dank and foul. She fought with desperation to retain her composure, to no avail.
The grays were 90 feet away and approaching.
“No no no no no no, how did they get here? How did they get past our satellite net? Where’s that Solar Warden fleet when you need it? Please, they can’t take me again! I can’t go with them again! Please, somebody help meeeee!”
Eighty feet.
Lindsay was frantic as she attempted to lock the car doors, her fingers fumbling, clawing at the buttons. But they were power locks, and they were dead along with the rest of the car’s electrical system.
Seventy feet.
The grays continued their measured approach as her panic reached a crescendo. They were now 60 feet away.
“Somebody help me! Please! Oh God, please help me! Don’t let them take me!”
Fifty feet.
“Please, God! Oh Jesus! Please don’t let them take me!”
Without warning, the grays stopped their advance. They were still some 40 feet away, but they were now frozen in their tracks. Through the fog of her panic, Lindsay realized she must have uttered something to forestall them. What was it? What did I say? She grabbed the sides of her head and tried to focus her thoughts.
What did I say?
After several moments, the grays continued their slow, herky-jerky march toward her car.
Thirty feet.
“God please help me!”
That wasn’t it. They kept coming, ever closer, ever nearer. Through the cloud of her panic, Lindsay wracked her brain, trying with desperation to understand what she could’ve said that would prevent the grays approach.
Twenty feet.
Lindsay struggled to focus her mind, to think, but in her panicked state, it was almost impossible. Now they were only ten feet away from taking her, ten feet away from taking Lindsay back to the mother ship, to that examination room where they would finish what they started. Dread shot up her spine and across her mind like an icy, clawed hand at the thought of what the enemy had planned for her, what they intended to do to her, to her body. If they succeeded in taking her this time, she would be lost. No one could help her. No one could save her. Not even Scarecrow.
She would be lost forever.
“God please help me! I can’t go with them again! Not again! Please God!”
They were almost upon her. One of the four gray-skinned imps reached for the handle on the driver’s side door while the other three congregated behind their comrade, staring over its shoulders with their black, lifeless eyes …
Then it dawned on her.
“Jesus! Jesus help me!” Her voice was shrill. Frantic. Desperate. “Jesus! Please help me! Please! Jesus!”
The four grays froze. That was it. She was onto something here.
“Jesus! Please help me! Please make them go away, Jesus!” Lindsay slapped her hands together and dropped her head, squeezing her eyes shut like she did when she was a child in Sunday school. She began to pray with a fervent intensity she’d never practiced before now.
“Dear Jesus! Jesus Christ! Please protect me! Please make them go away, Jesus! Please help me Jesus! Jesus Christ! You made a storm go away! You cast out demons, Jesus! Please make them go away! Please Jesus! Jesus! Jesus! Jesus! Jesus! Jesus!”
After a few moments, while she continued to scream her repetitive prayer with increasing desperation, Lindsay cracked an eyelid and peered out into the night.
The grays were gone. The beam of light was gone. The stench of sulphur had dissipated, along with her frantic, anxious fear. Lindsay was alone on the highway. She was all alone.
Again.
The young female lieutenant sat in silence on the side of the darkened roadway for several moments, trying to process what had happened. She’d never experienced anything like this before, and she was attempting to quantify how a name could imbue such power and authority. Then it came to her. It wasn’t the name per-se–it was the Person to whom the name belonged …
Without warning, the car started up and the electrical system sprang back to life. Lindsay squealed, her entire body jerking at the sudden noise and illumination. When she realized it was only her Lexus returning to normal operations once more, she exhaled a massive sigh of relief, slumping forward to rest her forehead on top of the steering wheel.
Lindsay sat on the highway for some time, continuing to whisper “thank you Jesus” over and over again. She still couldn’t understand what had happened, or why her appeal to the Divine had worked, but at that moment, the only thing that mattered to her was the fact that those little gray-skinned fiends were nowhere to be seen.
After what seemed like hours, but was no more than ten minutes, Lindsay’s reason seeped back into her tortured mind. She put the vehicle into drive and headed back out onto the highway. She drove only a mile or two when she spotted a building off to the right. It was a tiny country church, quaint in its appearance. She’d driven this highway countless times before, but this was the first time she noticed the lone building. There were a dozen cars in the parking lot, and Lindsay could see light filtering through the stained glass windows along the side of the petite building. A weathered marquee standing like an ancient sentinel at the highway’s edge read, “Assemblies of God.”
For some reason she couldn’t explain, Lindsay pulled her car off the highway, her tires crunching on the gravel as she eased into the parking lot to stop at the front of the little rural church. She let the Lexus idle for moment, staring up at the front of the building, unsure why she had decided to pull in.
She shut off the engine and got out of her vehicle. It felt as if she wasn’t in control of her own body, as if someone else was moving her, much like a puppet master would manipulate a marionette.
But this force was not malevolent. On the contrary, it was gentle. Encouraging. Lindsay wanted to stay in her car. She had no desire to get out, to go into the church. She wanted to get to Smith Mountain Lake, to her grandparents’ cottage where she felt she would be safe. But this tender force somehow assured her she should proceed.
The force continued to push her, drive her, compel Lindsay to go into the tiny church house. She stood at the foot of the steps leading up to the front doors while dry autumn leaves crackled as they drifted in a lazy dance around her feet, blown by a mild evening breeze that brought with it a hint of maple bark. A million stars sparkled in a clear sky above her head, framing a bright, almost full moon. She stared up at the double doors for a moment. With trepidation, Lindsay yielded to the benevolent force and surmounted the dark stone steps, worn from more than a half-century of use. She hesitated before placing her hand on the weathered, brass door latch.
Her doubts melted as Lindsay reached down and opened the front door. Singing welcomed her as she entered and slipped unnoticed into the foyer.
The image that greeted her was right out of a Norman Rockwell painting. Dark wood pews were augmented by worn, burgundy carpet. The altar was a spray of carved tracery, and the lofty, hammered-beam ceiling gave the interior a larger dimension than it appeared to have from the outside. A hint of musky odor mingled with wood polishing oil greeted the young naval officer’s nostrils. Hand-stitched gonfalons hung on the walls between the intricate stained glass windows, both displaying scripture verses and iconic spiritual images. Lindsay was convinced the tiny church hadn’t changed one iota since the 1950s.
There were no more than 35 people in attendance, but the little church was almost full. Still in her service dress alpha, Lindsay was careful not make a sound as she moved forward and sat down in the very last pew, listening as a gospel song wafted over her ears. She removed her cover and sat for some time, taking in the sights and the sounds of the little service, now in full swing.
Then to her surprise, a sensation descended upon Lindsay Vickers unlike anything she had ever experienced. It was in complete contrast to the sickening malevolence she felt when the grays were approaching her disabled car on the highway. Instead, it was a feeling like a warm, gentle glow from the midsummer sun that engulfed her, swirling, wrapping itself around her, absorbing itself into her and permeating her very soul. She could only describe it as a profound peace. The warmth of a love so divine proceeded to seep into every corner of her being, igniting her nervous system with an exhilaration that washed away and purged the feelings of fear and loneliness.
Lindsay began to weep softly as she was flooded by feelings and emotions of encouragement and assurance, instigated by a Presence she’d never experienced before, but that now wrapped her in Its loving embrace. Like one of her Nannie’s soft, warm throws …
But much more transcendent.
And for the first time since her horrific experience on the alien mother ship, Lieutenant Lindsay Vickers felt safe. Truly safe.
And she now knew beyond a shadow of a doubt …
That she was no longer alone.