CHAPTER ONE

I first started freaking out over aliens when I read a book of my dad's called Communion. The cover showed an alien with big bug eyes and a little slit for a mouth. The nose was just two tiny pinpricks. Dad said it was all make-believe--​that the author was crazy, that he needed to see a doctor--​but once I started reading, I couldn't stop.
     The aliens I'm talking about are called Grays. They come from a binary star system called Zeta Reticuli. It's about forty light-years from Earth. They've been coming here for ages, all the way back to Egyptian times.
     There are other types of aliens, too. The Reptilians--​who look like lizards. The Nordics--​who are tall and blond and resemble humans. But the ones that scare me the most are the Grays.
     Grays.
     Just saying it freaks me out.
     It's such a simple word. A color. Not black or white. But something in between. Something unknowable. Something that makes me not want to sleep.
     In the book, the Grays come to Earth and take this guy on one of their spaceships. They do a bunch of experiments on him and then let him go. But before they do, they put an implant under his skin so they can track him. Just like we do to animals.
     Animals.
     That's what we are to them.
     Lab rats.
     Have you ever seen those pictures of weird crop circles in cornfields? Or heard about cows being cut open and dissected? The aliens do that, too. No one knows why.
     I'm going to stop now because I'm really freaking myself out.

My dad is in the Air Force, and we live in what's called base housing. All the houses look the same. Everything we need is right here: a commissary, which is what you'd call a grocery store. The BX, which stands for base exchange--​kind of like a small department store. There's a swimming pool, a movie theater, a library, even a McDonald's. And there are rules, too. Lots of them. If you don't cut your grass, someone will come by and tell you to do it. You can only water your lawn at 1800 hours. (That's military time for six o'clock.) You can't play loud music in your backyard. And soldiers in crisp, white uniforms come by without warning and inspect the inside of your house. They want to make sure you're not living like a slob or growing marijuana in your basement. A guy in school named Jerry Finfinger had marijuana in his basement, and his dad was arrested and his family kicked off the base. What would that be like, I wondered, to have to live out there? With them. Civilians.
     I knew there was a world beyond the main gates of the Air Force base, where men with guns stood at attention all day long and checked cars coming in, but I'd never been outside of it, except for family trips. It was huge out there, with crazy highways and giant stores and parking lots. Kids got kidnapped all the time. But here on the base we were safe. Safe from the outside world. And the Grays. The Air Force had weapons that could probably defeat them if they ever attacked.
     One time I asked Dad if he knew anything about aliens, or if any of his pilot friends ever talked about them. He said the only alien he knew was a man named Danny Bones, who once drank thirty-three beers in one night.
     I don't believe him, though. The Air Force is known for keeping secrets. All you have to do is look up Roswell.
     This is what happened:
     A UFO crash-landed in Roswell, New Mexico, in 1947. The Air Force quickly covered it up, and said it was a hot air balloon. But that was a lie. Before they sealed off the area, several farmers found some wreckage--​shiny pieces of silver, like metal or steel. There was something strange about it, though. You could ball it up in your fist like aluminum foil and then it would just uncrumple back into shape, as smooth as a sheet of paper. And there was writing on it, too. Alien writing. All those pieces are stored away now at Area 51, a top secret military base in the Nevada desert. And you know what else they found?
     Bodies.
     Alien bodies.
     Grays.
     One of them was still alive, but really messed up from the crash. They took him to see the president, a man named Harry Truman. The alien didn't speak, but they were able to communicate through reading each other's minds. That's called telepathy. They made a deal: The aliens would share their super-duper advanced technology if the government allowed them to take humans every now and then for their experiments. They were a dying race and needed to find ways to continue their species.
     But the aliens broke their promise.
     They started taking more and more people.
     And there was nothing we could do about it.