Gingerbread

"How big was the spacecraft?" Agent Holloway asked the jittery young man sitting before him. He and agent Meadows were at the man's house--his parents home. The man wasn't quite so young, though, maybe early thirties. He just appeared younger than them. Perhaps because he was unemployed and still lived with his parents. Agent Holloway’s eyes skittered around the room. The man owned the latest gaming equipment and accessories. Hell, every game known to the human race was strewed on the dingy living room carpet.

"I don't know, man! It was big!” He took a nervous glance over his shoulder before taking another slow drag from his cigarette. Then his eyes shifted uneasily around the room.

Agent Holloway sighed and glanced up at agent Meadows. Meadows smirked and turned her gaze to the man. “Mr. Heiser, agent Holloway is just asking for an approximation."

"Everyone calls me Kenny," he said, taking another puff. " And I don't know. Big like the size of five semi-trucks fused together, I suppose.”

Meadows nodded patiently. "Good. That's very helpful," she said soothingly. " Then what happened?”

Kenny shook his head. “Then, I was inside.”

“How did you get inside?” Holloway asked.

Kenny gave an exasperated shrug. “I don’t know, man! You tell me! I was looking out the window at the spacecraft, and then I wasn’t.”

“What did you see?” Meadows asked.

Kenny shook his head again. “I don’t know. The area was dark. I saw shapes in the shadows.”

“What kind of shapes?” Holloway asked.

“Human-ish. They looked like us but not.”

Holloway almost rolled his eyes but stopped himself. “How do you mean? Did they have missing limbs? Were they taller or shorter than the average human?” He paused, his eyes lingered over the games on the carpet. “Perhaps they looked deformed like zombies?”

“No!” Kenny yelled, jerking up from his chair. “Look, I know what I saw! If you don’t believe me, why are you here?”

Holloway wordlessly closed the notebook on his lap and slid his pen inside his pocket. Meadows stood up from her seat. “I’m sorry, Mr. Heiser, er, Kenny. We do believe you saw something. We’re here because at least twenty-four others in your area reported seeing something similar.”

Kenny’s eyes rounded. “Really?”

Meadows nodded reassuringly. “Let me give you my card.” She reached inside the pocket of her blazer and handed it to him with a smile.

Kenny flipped it in his shaky hands. “So, I can call you anytime, day or night?” he asked.

“Of course. And if you can think of anything you might have missed, let us know,” Meadows said.

“Or call us if you see what you saw again,” Holloway said, getting to his feet.

***

“You don’t believe any of the stories we’ve heard so far, do you?” Meadows asked Holloway as he shifted the gear in the sedan and pulled away from Kenny’s house.

“What makes you say that?” he said.

Meadows shook her head. “Seriously? Over the last couple of days, you’ve basically mocked every person that we’ve interviewed.”

Holloway shrugged. “Doesn’t mean I don’t believe them,” he said.

“You’re a real skeptic,” she said, gazing out the window.

“Actually, I’m not. Our job requires us to be skeptics, though. You know that.”

“So, are you saying you aren’t?” Meadows asked.

Holloway shrugged again. “I’m saying, I believed him.”

Meadows swiveled her head towards him, eyebrows lifted in surprise. “You did? Why?”

Holloway didn’t answer right away as he steered the sedan. He wasn’t sure how much of his own story he was prepared to share with her. It was something he’d experienced when he was ten years old at a campsite. He’d never shared it with anyone. Not his parents, or with his soon to be ex-wife. Thank God.

“Let’s just say I’ve had my own supernatural encounter when I was a boy,” he said.

Meadows raised her sculpted eyebrows. “Really? Tell me more. Did you see little green men? Or was it more like human-ish shapes in the shadows like our friend Kenny?”

Holloway shrugged. Agent Meadows would never understand. She’d never understand how real these creatures were. Kenny was right. They were something in between humans. Something alive and intelligent, but scary as hell. The spacecraft is just a gingerbread house in the forest, and we were all Hansel and Gretel.

“Let’s just say, I don’t believe they are aliens from another planet. I believe they’re something else from this planet,” Holloway said.

“Hmm,” Meadows murmured with a nod, studying Holloway’s profile a bit longer before opening her folder. “We’ve got two more interviews to conduct in this area,” she stated, glancing at her watch. “Maybe we’ll get some real answers before lunch.”

***

Agent Meadows stepped out of the sedan and waved goodbye to agent Holloway. She waited till his vehicle was out of sight before walking towards her house—at least, that’s what agent Holloway believed. It was a large house surrounded by trees near the edge of the woods. The nearest neighbor was at least a mile away.

Meadows bypassed the front door and hiked around to the back of the house instead like she always did. She knew the owners were hardly ever there. She reached the forested area that surrounded a deep pond. She set down her briefcase on the dirt and started removing all of her clothing. 

It bothered her what Holloway had said in the car.

She proceeded to remove her bra.

Not the part about Holloway having a supernatural encounter when he was a boy.

She removed her panties.

But the part about him believing.

She tugged her hair loose from its tight bun.

Holloway believed what he saw! Not only that, but he knew who they were!

She peeled off her skin, her muscles, and her bones. Everything. Fleshly stuff crumpled and immediately absorbed on the dirt beneath her. Then the human-ish form slipped away, into the shadows of the forest to warn the others.