Day 21 – Even in Darkness, We See Them by Megan Neumann

Even in Darkness, We See Them (from A is for Aliens)

Megan Neumann

Maddy lingered by Brady’s bedside, tucking in his covers a little too tightly. She didn’t want to leave his side, didn’t want to go to her own bed. As she leaned in to kiss his forehead, he reached out his hand and tugged on her sleeve. “There are men in my room at night,” he said, his voice low, his eyes steady and serious.

“Men?” Maddy asked. Alarm, followed quickly by amusement, went through her mind in seconds. Kids dreamed. The lines between reality and imagination blurred, especially in the darkness of night. She knew this better than most people. “You’ve never said anything about men in your room before.”

“I forgot until now,” Brady whispered. He furrowed his brow, and to Maddy he resembled a tiny old man, too wise and too thoughtful to be her six-year-old son. “But I remembered just now when you were standing over me. They come in there.” He pointed over Maddy’s shoulder. “Through the wall. Then they poke me. They pull my hair.” Brady’s eyes looked through her as if he could see the dream men over her shoulder. “I can’t move when they’re here. I don’t like it.” His voice started to rise. Maddy sensed his temper rising too. She placed her hands on his shoulder.

“Shh,” Maddy said. “There are no men. It was just a dream.”

He sighed. Maddy’s mother sighed the same way whenever Maddy said something particularly dense. Maddy rolled her eyes, the same way she did when her mother sighed at her.

“It’s not a dream, Mom!” he yelled, and Maddy knew nothing she could do would stop his fit. He would grab the sheets in his fists and kick the blanket, crying out for Maddy to leave, pleading for her to leave him alone forever, screaming about how she was hurting him.

Somehow, remarkably, he took a breath and looked up at Maddy with old man eyes, eyes with too much knowledge. How could she have a son so smart when her own life was riddled with dumb mistake after dumb mistake?

“I know it’s not a dream,” he said. “I saw them. Their bodies are made of static except for their teeth. Their teeth are like ours. They’re always smiling.”

“Static? With teeth? That can’t be real, can it?” Maddy tried to make her voice light, joking, so he’d know there was nothing to fear. “Sometimes dreams can seem real.” Maddy turned on the lamp on his bedside table. “They can look just like real life, but they’re not real. No one comes in here at night but me and your grandma.” She kissed his clammy forehead. “I can leave the lamp on if you get scared.”

“It doesn’t matter.” His voice was resigned. “Light or dark, it doesn’t matter.”

“How do you know?” Maddy asked, feigning curiosity. “Light makes scary things disappear.” She smiled, while lying through her teeth.

“Last time the lamp was on, and they were still here. It didn’t make them go away. They pulled out my hair.”

At these words, Maddy’s eyes widened. “Look at me.”

His gray eyes moved upward, gazing into Maddy’s own brown eyes. He wore a solemn expression.

“There are no men. I know you think it’s real, but it’s not.” She brushed Brady’s hair from his forehead. “You have to accept that.” She moved toward him and breathed in the smell of his shampoo. His downy hair brushed against her cheek. She wanted to hold him, but she knew he wouldn’t let her. In the last year, he started to hate hugs from his mom. He was too big now, he liked to say. Big kids didn’t hug their moms.

“Sometimes I have bad dreams too, and you know how I deal with it?”

“How?” For an instant, his voice was petulant, more like a six-year-old’s voice should be.

“I close my eyes and go back to sleep.” Maddy didn’t blink as she lied. “Can you do that?”

He nodded, and Maddy tightened the blanket around his body one last time before leaving him.

In their living room, her mother, Carol, lay across the sofa watching reruns of sitcoms. Carol liked the familiarity of the programs she’d seen dozens of times. Maddy couldn’t blame her. She too found comfort in knowing when to laugh and when to cry.

“That took longer than usual,” Carol said. “Didn’t have a fit again, did he?”

“No, thank God. But he’s having nightmares. Apparently, static men come into his bedroom at night. Static men with teeth.”

“Static men? That’s a new one. You used to have nightmares, remember?”

“I do.”

“His will pass. Just like yours did.”

Maddy said nothing. Her mother couldn’t see the pain on Maddy’s face because Carol still faced the television, the bright pictures lighting her features.

Should Maddy have told her mother the truth? No, she knew she shouldn’t. What good would the truth do in this family?

The nightmares never did go away. Instead, she learned to live with them. In the night, when she sweated through her sheets, her heart pounding, knowing someone was in the room with her, she would close her eyes and hope sleep would come again soon. But Maddy couldn’t tell her mother that. Carol would feel guilty, just as Maddy felt guilty over not saving Brady from his own nightmares.

“I’m going to bed,” Maddy said. Carol grunted in reply.

In the kitchen, Maddy took her sleeping pills and instantly a wave of relief rushed over her. It was impossible for the pills to take effect so quickly, but she felt an easy lightness upon taking the drug anyway. Maddy drifted in a daze to her bed, passing by Brady’s room, the light of his lamp shining beneath the door. She paused, pressed her body against the doorframe, and listened. No sounds. He’d always been a quiet sleeper.

Over the next few days Brady didn’t mention his nightmares again. His days passed as usual, a lonesome boy playing in his room. But there was something different about him. He seemed quieter. Was he growing paler and thinner? Some days he went to the backyard and played on a rusted swing set with only one swing and a slide that tipped to one side when he sat on it. Maddy knew she should get rid of it, but he loved the set so much. Besides, she couldn’t afford a new one.

As usual, when she’d leave for work, Carol would watch him. That weekend Maddy heard all about the tantrums during the week, his fits of selfishness or hatefulness toward his grandmother.

“He’ll grow out of it,” Maddy said. “He’s just a difficult boy.”

“He’s a problem. What are you going to do next year when he has to go to school?”

Maddy shrugged. “I’m sure there are other kids like him.”

Carol sighed. “They’ll kick him out of school. They’ll call you during the day to come get him if he kicks and bites and screams like he’s been doing. What will you do if they start asking questions about him?”

“What do you want me to do?” Maddy asked. Her mother knew she spent all her free time with Brady. She tried to make him good. Sometimes she worried he was unreachable, a distant star too far away or too hot for her to touch. No matter how hard she tried to grasp him, he eluded her. This distant boy would never be hers.

“You need to discipline him.” Carol crossed her arms and set her jaw.

“Like you disciplined me?” Maddy said this with more vitriol than she’d intended.

“Yeah, I brought the belt out more than a few times in your day, and you turned out all right.”

“Did I?”

Carol stared at her daughter, her eyes searching Maddy’s eyes. Maddy wondered how her mother could ever think she’d turned out all right.

“Single mother. Shit job. Shit house. Still living with my mom. Yeah, I turned out great. And it’s all because of your fine parenting. It’s your fault I even have Brady.”

Carol slapped her. Maddy’s face flew to the side, her cheek burning hot. She clutched her face and let out a small sob. She didn’t want Carol to see her crying, so she turned and watched Brady through the kitchen window. He’d climbed up the side of the swing set and had somehow made it to the top horizontal bar, straddling it with his feet dangling over each side. It wasn’t safe. He would fall and break an arm or worse. But Maddy didn’t want to be one of those parents who never let their kids get dirty or scrape their knees. She wanted him to learn on his own. Maybe she’d given him too much space. Maybe he’d learned too much. But he looked so happy.

“I did as much as I could with you,” Carol said quietly. “You’re doing as much as you can with him. We’re all doing our best with the lives we’ve chosen.”

“I didn’t choose this.”

As Maddy tucked Brady into bed again, she asked him if he still had nightmares.

“I don’t have nightmares,” Brady said matter-of-factly.

“You had a nightmare a few nights ago about men coming into your room. Remember?”

He pursed his lips. “Mom. I told you it wasn’t a nightmare.” He was so disappointed in Maddy’s stupidity. “But you didn’t believe me. You never believe me. Like when I told you about the lady from before—”

“Hush.” Maddy pressed a finger over his lips. “I told you she wasn’t real either. You’re still having nightmares, aren’t you? You’re still seeing the static men.”

He nodded. “I saw them last night. I’m used to them now. They don’t scare me.”

This surprised Maddy. How could he not be afraid?

“You’re not scared of the men who look like static?”

“They’re not really static. I looked at them closer. Their skin won’t hold still. It floats. But their teeth are normal. And they have no lips, so that’s why they’re always smiling.”

Maddy imagines this, and a chill rushes through her.

“Do they ever talk to you?”

“No. They like to watch me and touch my skin. I think they’re scientists.”

Maddy wondered how he even knew what scientists were. Or what static was. Then again, she remembered, he watched so much TV. He memorized everything. He probably knew more than she did.

“Why would they study you?”

“I asked them that, but they didn’t answer.”

Maddy couldn’t get the image of the static men out of her mind, so it didn’t surprise her when she dreamed about them that night. It didn’t feel like a dream, though. At first, she didn’t see them. A light emanated from the corner of the room. Then the light grew, moving closer. She couldn’t move her body. Their breathing sounded like rushing wind through leaves, growing louder till the sound was like a train. She wished she could scream, but her throat was closed.

They stood over her. Their skin moved over their organs like wisps of smoke, ever changing without feature except for their wide smiling mouths. Her heart thumped in her chest. Her fingers twitched. Her fingers were the only part of her she could move. But fingers were useless without moving hands and arms.

The static men moved their own hands in motions through the air and lights appeared before them. The lights blinked like camera flashes.

She must get up.

What if they were in Brady’s room too? What if they take him away from her?

She tried to move her arms again, but her limbs were heavy, too heavy to move. She struggled until she had lifted one arm, but the weight pulled it to the bed again.  She opened her mouth and started to scream, but the sound came out in a low croaking. Maddy wondered if this sound had actually come from her.

Screams erupted from somewhere in the house. Was it Brady’s room? Maddy couldn’t turn her head to listen. She couldn’t move her legs to run to him.

Above her, the static men laid their translucent hands over her body and moved them up and down. She felt no pain. Not even an unpleasantness. Their touches were soft, gentle. It wasn’t until they pulled the hairs from Maddy’s head that she felt any discomfort at all.

Then they were gone, and the screaming stopped.

“You look like hell.” Carol set a cup of coffee in front of Maddy.

“Thanks, Mom.” She sipped the coffee, not really tasting it or smelling it. She hadn’t tasted or smelt anything in days, not since the static men started visiting her.

Beside her at the kitchen table, Brady sat eating his cereal in silence. His skin was sallow. Maddy touched her palm to his forehead. He felt too cold.

“Are you feeling okay?” she asked him.

He spooned more cereal into his mouth and chewed silently.

“You haven’t been sleeping?” she asked him.

He shook his head. “They keep waking me up,” he mumbled, looking down at the bowl, stirring the milk until he’d created a little whirlpool. Maddy watched it spin.

“He still having nightmares?” Carol asked.

“I should take him to a doctor.” Maddy looked up at her mother, but Carol looked skeptical.

“You really want to get involved with something like that? Doctors ask a lot of questions. What if they ask too many questions and someone finds out too much?”

“I’ve got to do something. I’m not sleeping either now.”

“You taking your medicine?” Carol asked.

“Yeah, but it doesn’t matter.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Brady repeated. “They’ll come no matter what.”

“What the fuck are you talking about, boy?”

“Mom!” Maddy yelled. “Language!”

Carol cackled. “He’s heard worse.”

Maddy moved toward Brady and whispered, “I believe you. They’re real. I’ve seen them in my room. I’m not going to let them hurt you again.”

“They don’t hurt me, Mom. I told you. They’re just curious.”

“I heard you screaming,” Maddy said.

“That wasn’t me. It was you.”

When Maddy was younger, she assumed everyone else was the same as her—everyone was scared to go to sleep. Sleep was dangerous and should be avoided at all cost. She assumed this was normal, so she didn’t tell Carol about it for years. She grew so sick. Maddy knew Carol used to worry over her as if expecting her to die at any moment.

Now, as an adult, it was Maddy’s turn to worry. Just like Carol, she worried her own son would leave her too.

But the static men were not the same as her old nightmares. Her old nightmares were quick flashes of things she’d left behind, things she had once loved taken from her. Bad things that had happened.

How could she stop the creatures paralyzing her? Night after night, she struggled under their control while they caressed, prodded, poked, and violated her sleep. Her days dragged by in painful episodes of half wakefulness. She had to go to work, had to continue her life and provide for her son. At the same time, she was failing him and failing herself. She’d die from lack of sleep, she knew. Then Brady would be left to Carol and to them, these static men who wanted to torture her and her son on a nightly basis.

“The static men are worried about you,” Brady said one night as they sat together at the table, neither of them eating.

“How do you know?”

“They told me.”

“But they don’t speak. Or they didn’t. Have they spoken to you?”

“Not really. Not like how we’re talking now. But sometimes they want me to know what they’re thinking, and I do.”

Somehow this made sense to Maddy. Of course, the static men could communicate without words.

“Why should they be worried about me? If they are, maybe they should leave us alone. I was fine before they came into our lives.”

“The static men say that it’s not them you’re afraid of. You’re afraid of the past. They say it haunts you and you won’t face it.”

“The static men don’t know what they’re talking about.”

“The static men know everything,” Brady said.

“They can’t know everything.”

Brady stared at her, his face unmoving. Then he folded his hands in his lap and looked out the open window where his rusty swing swayed slightly in the wind, its chains creaking.

“The static men have helped me remember,” Brady said. “That lady before. I remember her now.”

Maddy’s blood became cold. She took a quick breath and stood quickly, knocking over her chair. She backed away and nearly tripped. “I have to go. Your grandmother is calling.”

“She’s not my grandmother.”

Maddy didn’t acknowledge this. Instead, she stumbled through the dark house, the hall and rooms suddenly too small, the ceiling too low. Had the house always felt so claustrophobic? Soon she was in her mother’s bedroom. Her mother who was not her mother at all. Just like she was not Brady’s mother.

Carol’s body was sprawled out across the bed, the limbs awkwardly posed around her head. Briefly, Maddy thought the old woman was dead, but then she saw her mother’s heavy chest rise and fall, her eyelids flicker. Most likely dream images filled the old woman’s head, probably far more pleasant than anything Maddy had dreamt in the last two weeks.

“He knows,” Maddy announced.

Carol didn’t stir.

Maddy moved quickly, pouncing on the bed, grabbing her mother’s shoulders between her hands, shaking the old woman until her bloodshot eyes opened and gazed confusedly up at Maddy.

“What is it?”

“He knows!” The words came out hissed, but loud, loud enough for Brady to hear if he decided to stand in the hall listening.

“Who knows what?”

“Brady! He knows the truth. He knows what we did to him!”

“So?” Carol sat up. She pushed Maddy away and breathed slowly. Maddy saw no anxiety in Carol’s face, whereas Maddy’s heart pounded quickly in her chest. She wondered if her mother could hear it. Then she cursed herself for thinking that word: mother. Carol was not her mother. No more than she was Brady’s mother and now he knew. And Carol didn’t seem to care.

“He’s just a boy,” Carol said. “He can’t do anything. We have the paperwork now. He’s ours.”

“But what if he tells someone!”

“Who will he tell? And so what if he does? No one will believe him. Kids make up stories. We’ll tell them he was dreaming it like the static men he dreamt up.”

Maddy felt her dread receding. She put her face into her palms and took several deep breaths. The first few came out ragged, but slowly, her breathing steadied. Her mother was right. Her mother had always been right. Carol had never gotten caught when she took Maddy. There had never even been any close calls, as far as Maddy knew. And they had never gotten caught with Brady.

Three years ago they took him from his front yard. His real mother had been on the phone inside the house, probably gossiping with another one of the mothers whose house was perfect and new with a yard perfectly manicured by a paid stranger. God forbid the woman actually dirty her own hands. God forbid the woman actually watch her son.

Well, Maddy would watch him. She’d love him, and he would be hers, just like she had been Carol’s.

Carol had encouraged her to take him, told her this was their family way. What kind of person would the boy grow up to be in the clutches of some vain woman who never showed affection, not genuine affection at least?

And Maddy had been so lonely. It’d be so nice to have something of her own to hold and love her.

They took the boy on a hot summer’s evening while crickets chirped and sprinklers rained down on the green lawns. Brady didn’t even cry when Maddy picked him up. He smiled at her, a wise, knowing smile that would become so familiar, yet still strange over the years to come.

Then they drove through the night, across four states, never once stopping. No one saw them; no one knew where the boy had gone. She thought they had gotten away with it.

“You’re right,” Maddy said quietly. “How can he even know for sure?”

“Go talk to him,” Carol said, holding Maddy’s hand, squeezing her fingers too tightly. “Tell him he’s had another dream. Tell him the nightmares aren’t real. You are his mother!” These last few words she spat out, perhaps convincing herself more than Maddy.

“I am his mother,” Maddy said.

Then she walked into the hall and saw the light on in Brady’s room. She was prepared to tell him what her mother had told her to say. But instead, when she saw the boy curled up in his blankets, a book propped up on his knees, she couldn’t bring herself to lie. Who was she kidding? He was no son of hers. She loved him, yes. Perhaps he loved her as well. But they were not blood. They were not the same. The only things they’d ever share were the facts that they had both been taken and they had both seen the static men.

“I am not your real mother,” she said.

“I know,” Brady said. “I’ve known for a long time. Even before the static men, I knew.”

“How?”

“I could tell.” He looked up from his book and stared solemnly. “We’re not the same.”

“I love you. You know that, don’t you?”

“I know you love me,” he said, “but what you did was wrong. You broke the law.”

“Breaking the law is wrong. I don’t deny it.” Maddy sat on the bed and took his hands into her own. “Listen, I know I did something wrong, but it’s too late to make it right. I’m sorry for what I did. I’m sorry every day. What I did, it haunts me. I have nightmares about it. I can’t sleep.”

“The static men say you’re troubled. But for other reasons.”

“What have the static men told you about me?”

“They know Grandma isn’t your real mom. You were taken too late, and because of that, you’re troubled. Troubled like her. It’s a long line of trouble, they say, but they think I’ll be okay since I was younger. I’m adjusted. And you could still make it right.”

“What do you mean?”

“They’ve been studying us. The static men want to know about us. About people. They’re here to understand what we’d be like if they took people like you took me. And like Grandma took you. They said they were studying how we’d do if we were taken. They don’t think you’ll make it, but I will. I’m stronger.”

Maddy’s hands began to shake. “What do they mean I won’t make it?”

Brady shook his head. “You know what they mean, Mom.”

Maddy didn’t want to think about not making it. She’d avoided thinking about it her whole life. She stood, backed out of the room, and walked down the hall to her own room where she collapsed onto her bed face first. The anger and confusion she felt quickly subsided, overcome by deep exhaustion. She felt herself dozing. She shook her head quickly. No, she couldn’t fall asleep. The static men would come if she did.

The static men. They thought they knew her. They thought they knew what would become of her life, but they didn’t. They couldn’t. They weren’t real. It was a shared hallucination between her and Brady.

She thought of their long, unsubstantial fingers, reaching out to her, wiggling before her paralyzed body. The horror of it. In those moments, she’d only think of the worst memories from her youth, the paralyzing fear she’d felt when Carol had taken her. She was six, had just started kindergarten. It was after school when she’d been taken, picked up by Carol, lured into the car by some weak lie.

As the static men probed her, she saw Carol’s big fist coming down hard, hitting her right in the jaw, knocking her to the floor of the car where she’d lay for another ten hours, peeing herself, weeping quietly, hoping the strange woman wouldn’t hit her again. Carol kept threatening to throw her out of the car while it was moving, telling her the trucks would run over her and smear her across the road. So she better not make a sound. She better not act up or talk to anyone when they stopped for gas.

Every night for years, she’d wake up sweating, feeling as though she were still lying on that floorboard, her body jolted with each bump in the road, snot drying on her upper lip. She couldn’t stand being in the darkness of her room, so she’d always leave a light on in her bathroom or small lamp beside her bed. In the darkness, she felt she was still a child being taken, curled up and afraid to move. In the darkness, she could see the horrors of her past clearly.

Now Carol slept in the room next to her, and Maddy realized she’d fallen asleep. The static men stood over her. But something was different this time. Her body felt loose, not like the stiff paralysis normally experienced during their visits. She wiggled her toes to test it. Then she lifted a foot.

She stood cautiously, watching the static men. They were watching her too. There were six of them, and they stood about five feet away, not dancing like normal, not wiggling their fingers before her face. One lifted a hand and beckoned her forward. They turned in unison and walked down the hall. She followed.

She expected them to go to Brady’s room, but instead, they turned left into Carol’s bedroom. She joined them there where they made a semicircle around Carol’s bed. Each of the static men pointed at Carol. Then they looked at Maddy, if they could look. They had no eyes, just blank, static faces interrupted by wide toothy smiles.

“What?” Maddy asked. “What do you want me to do?”

“It’s too late for you,” Brady said behind her. She turned and saw him standing in the doorway.

“They say it’s not too late for me. I’ll be all right. But you, you’re haunted.”

“I’m haunted by these things!” she yelled, thrusting a hand toward the static men. “They’re ruining my life! Our lives! We were fine before all this started to happen.”

“No, Mom. You’ve never been fine. You’ve got to do what’s right. The static men are trying to tell you. You’ll never be okay. You were too old when you were taken. You’re messed up, Mom. But you can still save me. You have to do it.”

“Do what?”  She spat this question, and as she did, Carol stirred on the bed.

Maddy watched Carol open her eyes slowly, look around blearily, and then sit up, her eyes opening wide and darting around the room.

“What is this?” Carol asked.

Around her, the static men hissed, though their smiles never faltered.

“What are you doing in my room? Can’t you let an old woman sleep? Get back to your room and take that boy with you!”

The hissing grew louder. Maddy felt as if she were standing in the middle of a beehive.

Brady stepped forward and tugged on Maddy’s sleeve. “The static men say she won’t let me go. They say she won’t let you go either. You’ve got to stop it. You’ll sleep better when you do.”

“What is this idiot talking about? Get him out of here, and you get out too!” Carol roared, but Brady and Maddy stood still. The static men were moving in. They started their dance, wiggling their fingers before Carol’s face.

“What are they doing?” Maddy asked. “Move, Mom!”

Carol stepped out of bed and walked through the static men. They followed her, circling closely.

“She can’t see them, can she?” Maddy whispered. “Are they really there?’

“They don’t want her to see them,” Brady said, quietly.

“Listen,” Carol said, moving close and poking a finger hard against Maddy’s chest, “I’m sick of this nonsense. Both of you won’t speak of this again. You’ll act normal as if nothing’s wrong. Because nothing is wrong, is it?”

Maddy shook her head slowly. “Everything is wrong. Nothing has ever been right in this house.”

Carol slapped Maddy. Maddy instinctively rubbed her cheek and bowed her head. It wasn’t the first time Carol had slapped her. But perhaps it would be the last.

“The static men say you can be all right?” Maddy whispered to Brady. “Because you’re young enough.”

“Yes,” Brady said. “I’ll be all right. I’ll go home. Do it, Mom. They’ll help you.”

“What is this weird little shit saying?” Carol spat. She grabbed Brady by his wrist and yanked him toward her. “What the fuck are you yammering on about, you little freak!” She grabbed a fistful of his hair, and he cried out.

“Stop it!” Maddy reached forward. Carol slapped her again but this time harder. Maddy stumbled backward, falling to the floor. She felt the sudden panic of being trapped as a child. She wanted to curl up, pull her knees close to her chest, and pray for it to all be over soon. Then she heard Brady yell. He was still strong. Maddy wouldn’t let Carol weaken him, break him as she had broken Maddy so long ago.

“I’ll do it,” Maddy said quietly. “But you have to help me.” She nodded toward the static men.

The static men obliged. She saw them wiggle their long fingers around Carol’s body. Carol let out a strangled, “Gnnuhhh,” sound. Then she collapsed onto the floor, her body stiffened.

Maddy leaped on top of the woman she’d called mother for so long, but she’d always known, always hated. This woman was no mother. This woman had taken her from her home, put fear into her heart, and forced Maddy to do the same thing twenty years later. Now Maddy’s life was haunted, tainted by the stain of her own crimes.

Maddy wrapped her fingers—short and stubby compared to the static men’s—around Carol’s neck.

Carol did not fight back. She was paralyzed just as Maddy had been all those nights.

Maddy hoped her mother could see the static men, smiling down as they wiggled their fingers. She hoped, too, Carol remembered the horrors she’d committed, saw them flashing before her eyes as they did so often when Maddy closed her own.

Maddy drove through the night. She hadn’t forgotten his real name. She’d kept newspaper clippings from right after she’d taken him, kept track of the search for him. She knew where his family had moved when his real parents divorced. She supposed they couldn’t handle the sadness of it, losing their child.

Maddy suspected she wouldn’t be able to handle it either. But it didn’t matter. Carol’s body would be found soon, and Maddy would confess. She’d pay for her crimes like she deserved. That was fine with her. After she’d leave him at the doorstep of his mother’s house, she’d drive through the night and return to her bedroom, waiting for the police to come for her. There, she’d close her eyes in her own bedroom, and for once in her life, in the darkness, she’d see nothing at all.

A is for Aliens is available for Kindle, in paperback, and on Audible here.

Check out Megan’s author page on Amazon.