The Light: An Alien Abduction

BOOK ONE

THE ABDUCTION
I
THE FLIGHT

"Who do you think you are?" yelled Lewis. She was too engrossed in a soap opera to be bothered by her husband's ranting. "You didn't get home until four in the morning. Where in the hell were you?"

Lewis looked towards his wife sitting on the sofa seemingly enjoying herself. She glanced up at him with icy blue eyes as he looked around at the antique furniture he couldn't afford and expensive prints adorning the walls. She stretched like a reclusive cat about to sun herself. She whirled her long black hair away from her neck and tossed her head as if to say, "Why are you in my face?" He retaliated by depressing the off switch on the TV set.

"You're not my father!" Lana screamed. "It's none of your business where I go and what I do." With a wave of the hand she dismissed her balding spouse. "Get out of here and take Joshua with you." Her tone softened as she looked at the young boy trying to cuddle up next to her. "We need groceries." She turned the set back on.

Joshua moved closer to his mother. He nuzzled himself under her arm and rested his head in her lap. He covered his ears to muffle the sounds of arguing he detested.

Ever since Joshua's birth, Lewis felt responsible for every aspect of the child's upbringing. Lana, he felt, seemingly lost interest in the boy's welfare. He assumed she spent her days sleeping and her nights out so Lewis responded by hiring a maid to take care of his son while he was at work. When he came home, he took over the child-rearing duties.

It had its rewards. The boy adored his father. They went everywhere together. When Lewis went to the monthly meetings of the World Federalist Organization, he took Joshua. During their rides to and from the meetings, Lewis would explain the political discussions in simple terms. Joshua, though extremely bright for an eight-year-old, didn't quite understand concepts like "World Government" or "unification," but he listened. He asked hundreds of questions and Lewis patiently answered.

One day the child parroted a speaker he heard. "Nationalism must be eradicated. We must become a politically unified world," Joshua bellowed in his deepest voice. Lewis laughed from his belly right into his heart.

Lewis rarely gave himself time off. He had pushed himself too far. After five years, his patience ceased and he was ready to explode. With fists tightened and teeth clenched, he stood between the woman he had married and her TV set. The stained white T-shirt he wore kept his potbelly exposed. Lana couldn't help but laugh; probably more at herself for marrying him. She saw the hatred in his eyes, a look that was alien to him. Still, she pushed further, "What are you going to do, hit me?"

Joshua became alarmed and jumped to his feet to defend his mother as the young boy saw a rage building in his father's face. The man's brown eyes revealed a maelstrom that was about to explode. He had never felt his father's hatred before.

"Don't touch her, Dad. She didn't mean to laugh."