The Last Night Chapter Three 3A.M.

Chapter 3
3 A.M.
8

    Other than the subtle but persistent presence of what Ariel assumed were the Greys orbiting her just beyond the reach of her natural senses, nothing unpleasant happened to her that day. They soaked up the morning until it whetted their appetite and cemented Wyatts’ decision to turn down Macon’s generous offer…
    “Still don’t feel right about this.”
   “You’re doing this for me.” Ariel squeezed Wyatt’s right hand as they trudged up the sandy rise that led back to their home. “Wow, which sounds so selfish.”
   “Honesty usually does.”
  “Yeah because it is. Poor little rich girl with two men wrapped around her pinky.”
“Ariel, come on. That’s not even funny.”
 “Not laughing, maybe I am spoiled. I mean look at all this. I didn’t work for any of it.”
  “Well, I was born poor, not destitute. But paycheck to paycheck sure ain’t rich. And I don’t feel cheated at all. Your Daddy worked his tail off.”
  “But I didn’t.”
  “And don’t that make me happy.”
 “Wyatt!” She blushed.
   Her face turned red but bright again, rivaling the warm early morning sun.
  “It’s good I haven’t told my folks about Macon’s offer. They’re still not comfortable with…” He scanned their beach palace wedding gift and looked down at her. “If there are any snobs in our new family, it’s my folks, so sorry about them.”
  “They came to the wedding. That’s something.”
  “It’s not just the money, my Daddy had his own weirdness. Mama of course didn’t want to hear it.”
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 “Then you marry little Miss weirdness, who I’m sure she thinks is out of your league.
  “I would say ouch, but you’re right. But it’s not just the money. She’s scared for me.”
  “Maybe she should be. What if they’re…”
  “Demons.”
  She grunted as they sauntered past the pool, neatly situated on a spacious patio that led to a second set of steps curving up to the home’s sliding glass rear entrance. 
   Wyatt drew Ariel closer to him. “if you see them, if they reach out to you again. You will tell me.”
  “Is that a command?”
 “No, but I need to know.”
  “So. you can do what?” She countered as he pushed the sliding glass door open and followed him inside.
  “That was a little mean.”
  “And a lot real.”
 “So, we should go on the offensive, against invisible smoke? Get what you’re saying. You’re right. What can we do?”
“Wait and be honest.”
“Well, that’s good for most things anyway…”
   
     Later that night, hours after they had turned in, Wyatt awoke, tapped his cell phone laying on his nightstand, 3 A. M., looked back at Ariel, perfect beneath the full moon’s milky light, smiled, got up and headed for the bathroom at the opposite side of the room.
   A moment after he relieved himself, he turned toward the double sink, noticed his reflection in one of its mirrors. The bathroom was brightly lit, but he had shut the bathroom door before flicking on the light switch. Ariel needed her sleep. She had already suffered too many sleepless nights. 
  
 
10 
   He was alone.  “You lucky dog,” he murmured to himself as he washed his hands and smirked at his goofy bedhead reflection, not noticing the liquid like blue haze oozing through the crack at the bottom of the bathroom door. 
   A low pitiful moan pricked his ears. He tried to pull away from the sink. His eyes rolled. His hips did not.   “Ariel!” he yelled in his mind. It locked her name there. Her moan grew louder until it became a high-pitched scream.
   His right index finger began to tremble, until he finally bent it. The rest of his fingers on both hands quivered until they curled his hands into fists. His arms sprang forward a half second before his feet twisted from the floor. He lunged toward the door, flung it open, hurled his body through it. 
  Rage twisted his face into a war mask at the sight of four grey hands reaching down toward Ariel from a hazy blue portal slowly rotating just above their bed.  
   “No!” He yelled as he leaped across the floor and threw himself at her upright trembling body. 
   Eight alien fingertips burned through his bare skin. The stench and smoke of his burnt flesh filled their bedroom with a noxious blue mist. Ariel’s eyes: white as golf balls, had rolled back in her head. A second later she collapsed and fell against her pillow, her eyes shut, her body limp. 
   “Ariel!” Wyatt yelled, as he ignored his pain and grasped her seemingly lifeless body. His attention so focused on her he did not notice; the portal had sucked up the intruders and instantly shrunk from sight.