The Encounter A short story by Charles Roberts

 

          I remember that I were walking home from the pub along the canal bank when I saw this bright light hanging over the water, so bright it was that I had to almost shut my eyes.  Something made me stop walking and I couldn’t move, I couldn’t even lift my arm to shield my eyes from the light.  That’s when I saw them, there was two of them, and they was standing on the towpath in front of me.  They had long spindly legs ending in feet like a cows, sort of hooves, they had rounded bodies and their heads was round as well.  I couldn’t see a mouth or nose but they had big round eyes, well they looked like eyes, but they was all blue and they was looking at me I felt that they was undressing me.  They had two arms, but didn’t have hands as we know them, they had like claws or pincers, just the two on the end of each arm; they was about five feet tall.

          They come up to me, but didn’t walk, they seemed to float over the ground.  One came to each side of me and took hold of my arms, then we seemed to float over the water to the ship, or whatever it was.  Once inside the ship the light were so bright that I had to shut my eyes tight cause it hurt so much.  That’s when this red light, like a red horizontal line come on me; it started at the top of me head and worked its way down to me feet, then went back up again.

          I felt it rather than saw it, it tingled as it swept over my body so I don’t what it were doing, then I were back on the towpath and looking at this, I suppose that you could call it a space ship turned and it’s light went out, that’s when I could see that it were sort of pear shaped and we had gone in the narrow end. Then it were gone, in a flash, one second it were there then it weren’t, and I could walk again, I felt that my hair was standing on end so I brushed it flat with my hands.

          When I got home and undressed for bed I saw these marks, like bruises on my upper arms where the creatures had taken hold of me and carried me to their craft.  They lasted for about two weeks, but eventually faded away.  I still have nightmares about that night, I don’t walk home from the pub along the towpath anymore just in case they come for me again.  I will say now that I weren’t drunk that night, I’d only had four pints of ale, now I can only drink two pints and feel full so I don’t know what they done to me, but it affected me that way.