The Lights They Saw That Day

"I'm not sure what the point of this is." The words reverberate in the claustrophobic space, a wistful sigh woven throughout them. An unlit cigarette rattles slightly between long bony fingers, on its way to the thin lips that spoke the words.

Judy Melette has been here before. Not in a metaphorical sense. She's sat in this chair and spoken these words. The constant trace of deja vu leaves her struggling to remember a time when this wasn't her life. This is proven in the casual way she lights her cigarette, without questioning eyes or permission. She inhales the smoke deeply into her lungs, and only when she releases that breath does she seem to visibly relax. Yes, nothing new here at all, save for the face staring back at her.

"It's standard procedure, Miss Melette." the soft spoken man across the table leans in toward her, clasping his hands together ever so carefully. He's on the younger side. Maybe in his thirties, if Judy could guess. "Whenever a new head takes over the department, it's important to follow up on all open cases."

She scoffs, almost amused by the way his eyebrows crease in genuine confusion. "I didn't realize they still considered this an open case." she states bluntly, tapping her cigarette absentmindedly into the ashtray at the center of the steel table. "Last time I talked to old Sparky, he seemed about ready to call it a day." She peers at the youngish face before her--full of optimism and promise. What a joke. "I suppose that's why you're here right? Old Sparky finally retire to the golf course, did he?"

"Detective Sparcowitz retired, yes. But he passed all of his old case files to me when I took over the department."

"And so you bring the crazy lady back again for round--what is it now...seven?" the sharp edge in Judy's voice forces the young detective backwards. He feels his back collide with the steel chair behind him as he pulls away from the table. "I don't think you're crazy." he states in that same annoyingly soft spoken voice--ever even keel, ever calm.

"You'd be the first." Judy's blue eyes connect with the detective's deep brown. He finds the intense contact discomforting, but he refuses to be the first to look away. "Tell me Detective..." Judy begins

"Rodriguez" the young detective provides for her.

"Tell me Detective Rodriguez, what could I possibly tell you that wasn't in Sparky's report? Or in Detective Randall's for that matter? Or Officer Putnam's first hand account? I almost think you lot just get off on mocking me."

"Miss Melette, I'm not here to mock you." Detective Rodriguez leans in once more, clasping his hands together in a show of sympathy. "I just want to know what you remember from that night."

"It was seventeen years ago." Judy remarks, struggling to find anything in the windowless room to settle her gaze upon.

"I know. I know I'm asking a lot of you."

"You don't know. It was seventeen years ago. Everything from around that time is starting to blur. I forget what my childhood dog looked like. I can't remember what my mom used to make for lunch. But that night...that night I remember with vivid clarity. I can't forget it. I've tried, I've tried to erase it but my mind plays it like an old movie in my head. A constant nightmare-"

"Start from the beginning." Detective Rodriguez coaxes softly, pulling her from her increasingly agitated state. Judy takes another deep inhale of her dwindling cigarette. A breath out, and again she's calm.

"It was a Tuesday. I remember that because my mother was pruning the garden, and she only did that on Tuesday mornings. It had just rained. The air was clean, and the grass was still wet. It didn't bother me though, I had rainboots on. The world was my oyster. Poor Johnny..." she stops, attempting to swallow the emotional bile that had built inside her throat. Detective Rodriguez wears the same creased eyebrow concern she'd seen on all the others.

"Poor Johnny had on a pair of old white sneakers. Adidas, I think. They were caked with mud by the time we found ourselves in Popper's Field."

A question danced on the edge of the detective's tongue, but he swallowed it for a moment. He did wonder. Popper's Field, as he knew it now, was a haunted backdrop of the most treacherous folklore. It was the home of ghosts and lowlives, not a place for children to play.

"What made you go out there?" he curses internally. He had not meant to ask the question. Not yet, not this soon. But the words tumbled from his head out of his mouth, and he knew he could not swallow them back down.

Judy's eyebrows raise in slight surprise by the accusatory tone in his voice. What was he trying to suggest?

"That's just where we would go." she says plainly, as if he were the stupidest person she'd ever met. In that moment he felt every bit the silly new fool she made him out to be. "There's nothing special in that. A big beautiful field of tall grass. If you were seven and you had no TV to bide your time, you'd go out there too."

"Seven hours." he states, unable to mask his confusion and disbelief. "You were out there for seven hours. What did you do, in all that time?"

"We'd pretend we were hunters on Safari. We imagined we could spot lions and elephants beyond the tall grass. Some days we pretended we were in the trenches of war. I don't know, Detective. We were kids. We played with the bigness of a kid's imagination." Her voice had become soft and wistful, almost as if she were recalling a warm memory. It seemed strange to the detective, the ability to disconnect the beauty from the terror.

"Didn't your mother expect you home before night fall?" Detective Rodriguez prods, hating how bitter his voice has become in this line of questioning.

"Now everything's my mother's fault, is it? I'm afraid you'll have a hard time making that arrest, Detective. She's been dead for six years."

"I'm not blaming anyone, Miss Melette. I'm simply trying to understand."

"Well, to start. Just call me Judy. You sound like a damn teacher. And what's to understand? We were kids. It was the seventies. Nothing bad had ever happened in this town. This night birthed the fear, you understand? This is where it all began."

Detective Rodriguez looks down at the table, awkwardly attempting to carry on. He notices how her hands had begun to shake, the ash from her cigarette falling around the ashtray instead of into it.

"Okay Miss...Judy. The sun's gone down. You've played all day long. What were you doing at Popper's Field then, you and Johnny?"

"We were lying in the grass. Completely soaked. It hadn't been warm enough for the dew to completely dry. But we didn't care. The sky was so full of stars, it didn't feel dark at all. Johnny...he'd point out the different constellations: Orion, Andromeda..he was always looking up at the stars."

Detective Rodriguez studies her face for a moment, almost recognizing something within this wistful tangent. A pattern--a polished veneer painted across an ugly night. The truth lived somewhere beneath this quaint glassy remembrance. She couldn't see it or refused to acknowledge it. But he could see behind her starry eyes, that if there was a truth to be found, that's where he could find it.

"He always wanted to be an astronaut. It's perfect see?" Judy continues, almost completely removed from herself, reliving that night within these words. "They swept him away to see the stars."

"Judy." Detective Rodriguez sternly attempts to bring her back to Earth. "You were lying in the grass. What happened next?"

"There was this brilliant green light. Blinding. I couldn't see my hand in front of my face. A wrinkled gray...I think it must have been a hand reached out from the light, pulled Johnny backwards, disappearing into it. And then he was gone. Johnny was gone."

"What do you think happened to him, Judy?" Detective Rodriguez asks cautiously, though he'd already read Detective Sparcowitz's report, and Detective Randall's. He knew what her answer would be.

"The aliens!" she says emphatically, bringing both her fists down hard on the edge of the table. What remained of her cigarette dissolves into crumbles of ash and spark.

Detective Rodriguez closes his eyes, attempting to maintain his calm composure. He knew this account, she'd stayed firm in it for seventeen years. He'd already promised not to call her crazy.

"Don't you see?" she reaches out and grabs the detective's hand in hers. He's thrown off guard by the sudden gesture. "They saw in Johnny a kindred spirit. They saw how much he longed to escape. His daddy was awful to him you know. That's why he was always looking up. He wanted to be an astronaut. But this is better. It's so much better. He's among the stars now. The ones we can't see from Earth. He got away. He's free."

"Judy." Detective Rodriguez starts. It's all he can say. She can see it now too, his wordlessness. His grasp at understanding. "You don't believe me." There's no question in the statement. She's heard this before.

"I believe that you believe this, Judy." the detective concedes once he finds his tongue.

"Don't patronize me. You weren't there. You didn't see it!"

"Enough!" Detective Rodriguez barks, and his sudden shift in tone causes Judy to fall silent.

"I need you to think, Judy. Really think about what you saw. Don't paint a pretty picture over it. The light you saw. Think about the light. Really focus on it." He sees her close her eyes, squeeze them shut. He isn't sure at first if it's to block out his voice or an attempt to draw her mind back to that night. Praying that it's the latter, he wills himself to move forward. "What color is the light, Judy?"

"Green." she insists.

"The grass is green Judy. The reflection of the water on the grass makes it seem green. The light isn't green, is it Judy?"

"It's green." she insists again, her voice breaking with the buried frenzy of emotion bubbling beneath her skin.

"Think!" Detective Rodriguez barks again, making Judy jump slightly. He hates the tone of his voice, but he knows this is the only way. The truth is beneath the veneer. The ugly truth lives in Judy's mind alone. "Remember the light Judy." he speaks firmly, resolute in his intention.

"Lights" she suddenly says, and at first Detective Rodriguez is confused by what she means. Her eyes snap open, but her gaze is far away. She is seeing a sight that the detective cannot see, somewhere far beyond his shoulder, some other time and some other place."

"Two. There were two lights. The mist blurred them together, but I remember now. There were two."

"Head lights" Detective Rodriguez offers in an attempt to prod her further. If he can only bring her down to Earth, back down from those far away stars.

"Yes." she says to his surprise. He thought there would be a battle. Her account had been the same for seventeen years. Why was it this easy? Had no one else really ever thought to ask? Was she finally strong enough to confront her monsters? Or perhaps she had finally weakened to the point of caving in.

"Don't say what I want you to hear, Judy. Tell me what you see. Tell me the truth. Whatever it is." he starts again, terrified. He's so afraid she'll walk everything back. They stood together now, on that ledge, at the edge of the precipice of truth. He needed her to jump off, but he couldn't give her the push.

"There are two lights. They look green. I don't know why they look green, but they do. The grass probably. No...the car! There's a car. The car is green. I see it, detective. A green car!"

Detective Rodriguez lurches forward in an excited frenzy. He quickly jots this new information down. He can't believe it-- new information--after seventeen years.

"Good. Judy. That's good. You're doing great." the detective placates the woman in front of him, now visibly shaking. "What else do you see?"

"A hand. Grey must be a...No. It's a bag. A plastic bag for a face. He took Johnny away! Oh God!" Judy's eyes snap open, a new terror reflected on her delicate features. Detective Rodriguez feels a certain guilt for watching helplessly as this fragile creature jumps off that final ledge. He hates how much he needs her to dive into this frightening unknown.

"He didn't want me." she says darkly, and the detective's stomach turns.

"What do you mean, Judy?"

"There was a man. I mean...he must of been a man. I don't know. I couldn't see his face. He had a bag over his head. One of those gray plastic bags from the market in town. How did he breathe? I mean he must have been suffocating. But he held Johnny and Johnny started screaming. and the man just said 'Look away little girl.' And I did. Oh God. I just closed my eyes and let him take Johnny away."

Judy Melette has been in this room. She's sat at this chair. But never in her life had she spoken those words. This was new. This was all so new, a fresh wound. A sob escapes her throat, and before long she crumbles completely into a fit of them.

Detective Rodriguez had never in twenty years on the force found himself so wordless. He takes in the sight of Judy, visibly witnesses as the pretty picture she had painted in her mind for so long slowly washes away. He sees what remains of her when all she's left with is the ugly, unsatisfying truth.

"Johnny's dead, isn't he?" she finally asks. And he hates that he can't tell her for sure one way or the other. But he thinks the answer is probably yes, so he nods.

"I don't know for sure." he amends, finally finding his voice again. "But it seems likely."

She nods again but says nothing else and Detective Rodriguez wishes beyond everything that he could tell her that the aliens took Johnny to the far away stars.

But there's a certain importance in the realness of things. There was a boy who lived in this town, and that boy's name was Johnny. This is real. Johnny's not here now, and something horrible happened to him. Something they may never truly understand. This is also real. It's bloody and horrible and unfinished, but it happened. And it matters that it happened. And now two practical strangers sit in a room, staring at each other in complete silence, both utterly born from and destroyed by this fact.

And this moment in time somehow manages to be both at once a beginning and also an end.