2012 by Whitley Strieber Read Free Book Online Page A

early December night touched by just an edge of crispness. As always, he found himself moving along the old foresters path that crossed the top of the little draw where, five years ago almost to the day, he’d noticed that odd light.
    He stopped, looked down the draw. He had encountered them just there, just fifty feet down. It had looked like an old witch’s cottage that he’d never seen before. Glowing, infinitely sinister.
    Curious, thinking maybe he had squatters in his woods, he’d walked up to it, and the next thing he knew, he was grabbed by scaly hands, he was being glared at by the most terrible eyes he had ever seen, he was being manhandled-and yes, the infamous rectal probe had taken place-and then he was on the ground, the little cottage was gone, and there was a crackling electricity in the air.
    At least, that’s what he remembered in his conscious mind. His dreams were a different story. In his dreams, there were towering emotions of loss and longing, and Brooke was involved, but she had sworn that she’d seen nothing that night, heard nothing.
    He moved up the dark path, shining his light ahead, looking for the cigar cave. A smoke was what he needed. He had a gargle station in the garage, which he’d use before he got in bed with Brooke. Cigar breath and he’d be on the couch, and he was way too tired for that.
    He shone his light on the trees that loomed around him, the oaks with their golden leaves, the red maples, the gnarled pitch pines that began to appear as he climbed farther up the ridge.
    He was maybe fifty yards from the cave when he became aware of a more solid shape up ahead.
    He stopped, peered into the dark. Matt was on duty tonight, so maybe it was a deer. And yet, the form-it looked like a man standing real close to the trunk of that oak.
    Oh, shit, what if the reptilians knew that he was writing about their invasion, and they didn’t like it?
    Hardly daring to do it, his hands shaking so much he could barely manage it, he got the flashlight pointed in the direction of the figure.
    -which did not move.
    Was it a branch? What was that?
    He stepped closer. “Hello?”
    It leaped out at him.
    He fell back, he lost the light, and then the figure was on him, glaring down at him-and laughing.
    “Godddamn it!”
    “Oh, man, Wiley, Wiley, oh Christ, this is rich! It’s rich!”
    Wiley got to his feet. “You call yourself a cop? Out here wasting taxpayer money like this-what if there’s a lost kitten or something down in the town? What will you do?”
    “That flashlight! How many batteries in that thing?”
    “A few.”
    “Beka says to me, who’s got a searchlight up on the ridge behind the Dale’s house? That’s what it looks like. I mean, they were concerned over in Holcomb, they thought we had a fire goin’ up this way.”
    “Holcomb is fifteen miles from here.”
    “I rest my case.”
    “You saw my flashlight from your house?”
    “Absolutely.”
    “And you got out here in what-five minutes? I don’t think so. You’ve been out here for a while, because you’re raiding the Cubans, you shit.”
    “You’re raiding ‘em, too, you shit. Otherwise, why would you be out here yourself?”
    “Bastard.”
    “You’re the bastard, because you can afford the damn things and they’re a precious luxury to a poor cop.”
    “I’m hardly rich.”
    “Your kids are in an exclusive private school in K.C. Not to mention the Jeepazine with which you convey them to said school daily.”
    “It’s moderately customized.”
    “TV in a Jeep is very froufrou for rural Kansas, buddy. Look, let’s go down to my wife’s roadhouse and get hammered. We can take cigars with us, the place is closed, nobody’s gonna know.”
    “Brooke’s gonna get suspicious if I stay out here too long. And as for coming home drunk, that’s been done one too many times.”
    “Man, I have to admit I’d like to be pussy-whipped by your ball and chain.”
    “You think?”
    They began to wander back, both