Backyard Abduction

As the evening summer sun moved behind the house and shade from the oak trees sprinkled across the back yard, he fired up the barbecue. She brought out the drinks, then the meat on a platter for him, then she got the paper plates and napkins out onto the deck, started the music and turned on the Edison Bulb strings of lights. Guests started coming in through the gate in the wooden fence, and the party was on.

The little ones ran around the yard and slid down the slides and swung on the swing set, and screeched and laughed and whined. The teenagers all gathered around the table on the deck farthest from the door to the kitchen and gossiped and glared and groaned about school and who liked who. The adults split up as they always tended to, most of the women in the kitchen around the bar, opening desserts and deviled eggs and pasta salads, and finding serving spoons while joking and laughing and sipping their fruity drinks, and the men moseyed on over to the barbecue to give him advice, and complain about work and their in-laws, and discuss sports while sipping their beers.

A slight breeze lent a pleasant lull to the otherwise hot summer air. A couple of dogs ran with the littles and begged the men for morsels. They hosted this same party many times, and almost no one new came tonight and almost everyone who always showed up attended tonight. Everyone enjoyed themselves as much as they usually did, and the food tasted sweeter outside than fast food ever could.

“Great do on the steaks, Dave,” Edward said.

“Yeah, Dave, great grilling, as usual!” Todd agreed. The other men, gathering back around the grill hoping for second helpings nodded and murmured their agreement.

“Well, thanks, guys!” Dave said, smiling at his neighbors and friends. “Lindsey marinated them, so really, she deserves credit for the flavor, but that charbroiled goodness? That was all me!” The men all laughed again.

“We know, we know,” Edward said, still chuckling.

Suddenly, a gust of wind burst down in the yard, drawing everyone’s attention to a deeper shadow that had blotted out the sun in an instant.

Dave put a hand to his brow to block the wind and stared at the large elliptical ship hovering over his backyard. All he could muster was a weak, “What the—”

Multicolored lights blast on, bathing the yard in a swirling rainbow of colors and Lindsey screamed for everyone to “Get inside, NOW!” Mothers ran to the sandbox and swing set to grab their youngest children while the lightshow continued, and no one quite noticed that the music had stopped and the string lights had all gone out. For a moment, it was pandemonium in Dave and Lindsey’s back yard, then it was still, except for the whirring of the UFO and the swirling of the colored lights. Inside the house, just past the sliding glass door, however, was another story.

“Is this real?” Amy asked, a lick of anger in her tone. “How did you do this?” She asked Lindsey.

“We didn’t do this!” Linsey said

“How could they have?” Todd said.

“What is it?” One of the teenagers asked, from further in the house.

“What do you think they want?” Asked Edward.

The little kids and some of the teens had made it into the living room and were leaning over the back of the couch staring out the window. What they saw made now sense. Plastic cups and paper plates from the yard were floating, dancing around in the swirling rainbow of light. Rising slowly higher and higher, swaying as if in a clothes-washing machine. Eventually, when the first cups were probably 20 feet off the ground, and thought the lights didn’t perceptibly change their pattern or speed of swirling around the yard, bigger and heavier things started moving, up off the ground, dancing and swaying up higher and higher into the air, and gravitating towards the center of the yard, directly under the spaceship. Dave audibly groaned and tapped his palm on the wall when his grill rose up and joined the rest of his cutlery and yard décor in the air above his back lawn.

While the stunned group of friends all watched and waited inside the cramped house, the lights from the UFO flashed pure white, and the ship seemed to hop instantly a few feet higher into the air. The light flashed again, brighter this time, and when it was gone, so was the UFO. So were all the plates and cups, and even the tables and chairs. The swing set and the slide and the canopy were all gone. Even Dave’s grill was gone.

As the blinking people rubbed their eyes and stared out the window and through the sliding glass door in disbelief, it took them all a moment to notice that Abigail was gone too.

The three-year-old had been in the middle of the couch, staring along with everyone else, her big brother, Tom, had been right next to her. He was the first to notice that Abi was missing. He called out to his mom, Amy, while Dave and the other adults opened the sliding glass door and stepped out onto the now bare deck.

“Mom!” Tom said again as Amy ran into the living room from the kitchen. “Abi! She’s, she’s gone!”

“She’s not gone!” Amy screeched, “She was with you, right? She was inside, she must be right here!” Soon, everyone was calling for Abigail, and soon it started to sink in that she was gone. Snatched by that incomprehensible force, right through the closed living room window.

The whole group searched the neighborhood, and Lindsey called the police. The police, skeptical as they felt, had to admit that the entire party seemed incredibly shaken up, and they couldn’t deny that the backyard and deck were completely bare. Amy stayed in the house and spoke with the officers through her uncontrollable tears, Lindsey kept an arm around Amy and told the officers when they overstepped with their questioning or when Amy needed a break.

Tom, blaming himself, searched in a frenzy, crying out for his baby sister, until a couple of the other teens held him and forced him to calm down and let him cry on their shoulders. Years later, he wouldn’t even remember whose shoulders they were, but he would still appreciate the help of those friends. He thought about that night often, it had driven him to study abductions and advocate with governments and organizations around the world to find answers. Though he had found some, and had some unbelievable adventures, he hadn’t yet found the only answers he wanted for the past 30 years. He still hadn’t found Abi.