had turned on a huge vacuum cleaner and just sucked them up into the sky.
Kevin instinctively backed away and then turned to run. He ran to the opposite end of the street where a convenience store sat tucked in between two tall buildings. Kevin flung the door open and ran inside.
Ten terrified people stood at the windows of the store looking out and up at the pervading image of the enormous ship just hanging in the sky over the city of Norfolk. Kevin saw that the sky was darkened by black specks rising upward and realized what he was seeing.
Thousands of people were being pulled into the ship.
Kevin's legs gave way beneath him and he sat down hard on the cool tiled floor of the store. He put his hands over his face and wept.
Day 24—
Leslie read her tattered Bible by candle light, her nose pressed close to the pages of the worn book, lost in the ancient story of Noah and the Great Flood. Her bedroom was dark except for the small warm light of the candle flame that cast larger than life shadows of her and her cats on the opposite wall.
Some nights, to pass the time, she made shadow puppets, entertaining herself and giving the cats something to chase. Tonight, she was bent studiously over her Bible, pouring over the story of Noah, engrossed in ancient times and the lives of ancient people.
Bootsie was curled up contentedly on her lap, and the other cats were perched at the window. They sat at the window every night, or roamed the house on silent patrol. They padded along on whisper quiet feet, roaming ceaselessly.
She glanced at her two cats who now sat
guardedly in the window beside of her and then stiffened. Their ears were laid back and a soft growl had begun to form in their throats, low at first, but gaining volume as they watched some unseen horror outside.
Every nerve in Leslie's body tensed. She listened intently, her head tilted to one side, her eyes wide and alarmed. She stared at the window, as if expecting Satan himself to come leaping through it. She sure had picked one rotten fucking time to quit smoking.
Leslie Watts was alone, except for her three cats, in the small two bedroom house she had lived in for the past ten years. She had been inside for almost a month now. Every day, she carefully marked a line through the pale blue number, marking off each day of her survival on one of the old wild life calendars that hung on her walls.
During the daylight hours, she heard a cacophony of screams and shouts, of metal clanging and the screech of metal against metal. At night, it was the sound of a mournful wind sighing through the trees and whistling through the eaves of her house.
She knew the Grays couldn't come inside of her house, hadn't she helped to write that article in the paper? , they couldn't. She stared at the window and nervously bit her lip. She knew that they never came to the surface at night either. She reread the front page article. Yes, I 'm right, it's right here, she assured herself, as if she hadn't written that article, herself.
They didn't come to the surface at night. Leslie wanted to believe it was the truth, but she knew that her sources could always be wrong. It was better not to take chances. Stay quiet , she told herself, stay hidden . It was the only way she would make it out of this alive. Stay quiet, stay hidden . She had to be careful, everything was getting so crazy now, so fucking crazy.
The three cats that shared Leslie's home reacted to the slightest movement outside. They diligently watched the events of the world around them unfold.
Their eyes peered out into the daylight and dark of night with keen interest. One of them was always on guard, sitting on the window sill, squeezed between the drawn shade and the double-paned glass of the cottage style windows. Their eyes followed the Grays up and down, as they moved from the sky to the Earth, seeming to float on the air as they traveled to and from their ships stationed overhead.
The two cats at the window stayed
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