Screaming Helpless

We were mystified. There was no explanation for what we saw on that secluded road in the desert. The air had changed, we could feel it. There was no more going back. People were after us and they were stopping at nothing.

Now as the new life of spring began to shoot out in every direction, mine was coming to an end. Soon they would pull onto that long drive and stop at the walk. Two would get out and the third would sit in the back and wait. Wait for it all to be over. The two would come inside, one from the front and the other from the back door.

I see it now as clearly as I have both times. Just like you had seen the thing at the diner, with your wife., the other day while leaving the bus out on the highway. Each time they took one of three of us off in the gray car and they would get you next.

How could we explain that each could see what was coming? Now I see it again. Ever since that trip yesterday. The sound at the ravine, and ... WHAT? Why couldn't we remember what it was we all had seen? It had to be important. Now we were paying for it, one by one. Finding ourselves back in the car, it just seemed impossible. But the three of us all knew preciously the same things. Yet there was nothing of any importance. And now we each had to wait to be taken. No resistance. Just wait to go with the two tall guys in the frosted glasses.It was all too impossible to explain, and none had believed. They weren't buying it. Not the cops, not her folks, not even the bus driver. He was nice enough. After walking to the rest stop, he had made an exception, and though your card wouldn't work, we had not enough cash. He made up the rest and said: "send it to me when you can." But he never did anything, just ignored the whole story, patronizing. 

There had to be an explanation for it all. Why the car radio didn't work. Why the phone had fried like a potato. Under the hood, all the wires were black and charred. Now at the house I called her folks, but could not explain any of it. They must have sent the cop, but even he wasn't doing anything. Just starred like he was not able to comprehend a word. I never had been so unable to describe anything, especially the taking of Anna. He didn't believe that for one second. The look on his face, the questions he asked. "He'd look into it." Come on, I know, I'm the one he's looking into. And all those questions about Shelia. "Hadn't she called them just yesterday?" Going through her stuff like that."It appears she didn't even take her purse." No kidding, that's abduction for ya. He probably intends to come back with a cadaver dog and start digging up the back yard.

Now it's happening again! The gray car is coming down the drive. It stops in front. The two tall guys get out and go to the front and back doors. The one with the silver hair stands quietly inside the front door, his hands outstretched. The other stops behind you. Slowly you turn and walk out with them, unresisting, toward the gray car. I get in. The car pulls around slowly and they drive off I am sitting calmly in the back seat. But inside I am screaming helpless, like a madman.