When Gina woke, her phone was lit with 17 voicemails from a single unknown number and one from another. A woman’s voice, trembling and panicked: her husband was missing. Something was wrong. But, Gina’s phone was nearly dead. She’d need a charge before she could unravel the desperation in that stranger’s voice. Last night was long. Strange. Exhausting. She padded across the room, pulling a heavy stack of prints from her printer. She thumbed through the photos, her skin prickling. They proved what she did see and filled in the gaps of what she didn’t.&nbsp; Pictures didn’t lie, even if her eyes sometimes did. The job had sounded routine: trail a client’s wife suspected of cheating. Easy. Gina had done it dozens of times. She wore her small, well disguised camera casually around her neck, set to fire every three minutes, catching everything without notice. At 4:42 p.m. yesterday, the woman left home. She drove without direction, weaving through backstreets, as though she knew someone was watching. Gina stayed loose. Her client had already planted a tracker, so she didn’t have to press close. The wife finally stopped at a crumbling bar on the outskirts of town. She stepped inside after a furtive glance. When Gina followed minutes later, the woman was seated in a back booth with a shadowed figure, broad-shouldered, unmistakably male. Nothing unusual about that. But then the wife slid a small package across the table and without a word, she slipped away to the restroom. Gina followed. The restroom was silent. Empty. No exit. The window was barred. The stalls bare. She was gone. Panic cut through her professionalism as she rushed back to the booth. Empty. Both gone, now. The air still felt disturbed, like a draft from an open door that didn’t exist. The bartender stared at her quizzically. She settled up for the sprite she ordered and went out to her car. Outside, the woman's car was missing. Gina yanked up the tracker, half-expecting the dot to be nearby. Instead, it pulsed two towns over. Already. She didn't know if she could trust the technology, but drove on towards the signal, anyway. By the time she pulled into the gravel lot of another shabby establishment, night had crept in. The wife’s car sat parked behind the building, as if abandoned. She went back and examined it. The hood was cold, as if it hadn't been driven all day. There was a pile up of pollen on the windshield which should have blown off during a drive. Inside the diner was nearly deserted. Nearly. At the far end, in the weak light, sat a man. The same build as the shadow in the booth. He turned his head slightly, just enough for Gina to feel the weight of his attention. But no sign of the wife.&nbsp;Gina decided the only thing she could do at this point was to follow Mr. Mysterious.&nbsp; She sat down and ordered a piece of pecan pie to nibble on while waiting for anything to happen. The diner was still, save for the loud hum of the flickering lights. The air was oppressive. She felt as if the pressure of the air was crushing her. And her head began to spin. Things went completely dark. She was suddenly on her hands and knees and could feel the scratchy prickle of dry weeds underneath her.&nbsp; She felt for her purse but it was missing. She groped in her jacket pocket for her phone. It was 10:52pm. She had lost five hours of time. What the heck happened to her? Was she robbed? The flash light app illuminated her surroundings. Nothing but an empty field. She stood up, searching for her car or some landmark which would help her know where she was at. The faint light of the new moon lit up the night just enough for her to see its reflection on her bumper. She carefully walked back to her car. She took out the hidden spare key from the back fender and then drove home. Now, Gina looked at the pictures her camera had taken, filling in the moments she apparently forgotten. The last photo she remembered was in the diner. The next four photos was of her steering wheel. She was driving. Perhaps following the man. Then there were bright lights and smudges. No help at all. She kept looking through the pictures. The man with the shoulders and the wife in the field, holding hands. Both of them were looking up and a light was washing over them. They were in one photo and then in the very next photo there were two… creatures… wearing their clothes. Their faces were dark purple, swollen and uneven, each with three eyes. The highest eye on his face locked onto the lens. Gina shivered. She wondered if she was losing her mind. Then three completely white pages. Over exposed. Then she was in a sterile, white room with stainless steel equipment she didn’t recognize. More of the lifeforms, busying about the room, using their equipment to perform unknown tasks. It looked like a hospital. Gina gasped. She saw herself on a metal table, wires webbing her body. In the next, one of them leaned so close to the lens she could see her reflection in its three eyes. She trembled.&nbsp; Gina sat back and tried to negotiate what she witnessed. She tried to understand her missing time. It made her feel so vulnerable and scared. What did they do to her? What were all those wires?&nbsp; She walked back to her charging phone to call her client. She didn’t know what she was going to say, though. “Sorry sir. Your wife is an alien. And she went home.”&nbsp; Is that what happened? No one would believe her. Not even with the pictures. She could hear people calling them deep fakes, now. She wasn’t ready for that conversation. Instead, she decided to finish listening to her voicemails. The thirteenth message was from the diner. She left her purse at the counter. She can come pick it up at any time. That’s a relief. She doesn’t have to cancel her credit cards. By time Gina got to the eighteenth message, the poor panicked woman’s voice had turned weak and trembling. She said, through her sobs, “Sorry to keep bothering you. But, I don’t need your help, afterall. I found a letter from my husband. He left me for his first wife and went home.”

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Going Home

Houlsby

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An Ordinary Case

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Jennifer Houlsby

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