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Yes?”
    â€œYeah,” Mike said. “Okay.”
    It was a story. He began telling himself it might even be interesting. As a child, he was one of the many who read H. G. Wells and Ray Bradbury and thought, Maybe …
    Science fiction or not, it was work, and, really, it was all he had left.
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    The Landon University library was hidden among the many buildings on campus. After numerous wrong turns, two slips on the icy sidewalk, and a few curse words, Mike discovered it nestled in its own section of forest on the west end. It was identical in structure to every other building at the college, and Mike wondered about the lack of architectural creativity. Its only distinguishing characteristic was the black letters, too small to read from the main sidewalk, that announced, LANDON LIBRARY AND RESOURCE CENTER. The inside was just as drab as the outside. All the shelves were metal, and no art hung on the walls, only school-related posters and flyers. One announced the theater department’s latest production of Our Town . Another invited all young Democrats to an organizational meeting. Others were for various clubs, seminars, or classes. No sculptures. No paintings.
    He was surprised to find that Landon Library possessed a vast selection of offerings on UFOs, aliens, space travel, and the like. He noted that they rested between books on cryptozoology and books on the occult and witchcraft. Interesting.
    He laid a few titles on a table in a neat stack: The Roswell Incident , In Search of UFOs ,a few standard texts by Whitley Strieber, Alien Impact by Michael Craft, as well as numerous books on sightings and abductions. He recognized the name of Erich von Däniken, author of Chariots of the Gods , Gods from Outer Space , and The Gold of the Gods . He searched indices for references to animal mutilation and found information only in Craft’s book. He skimmed and perused. After a few hours of mind-numbing reading, he replaced the books and, after finding nothing else of interest in the stacks, plunged into the periodicals subject catalog. He found a few articles on so-called close encounters, mysterious animal mutilations (these usually came hand in hand with stories of crop circles), and a relatively new trend in mutilation reports, the chupacabra , roughly translated from Spanish as “the goatsucker.”
    The whole thing was utterly ridiculous. The photographs were blurry and completely ambiguous. Pie trays on fishing line , he thought as he looked at the grainy purported photos of UFOs. No real pictures of the chupacabras existed either, just crude sketches directed by alleged witnesses. On the Internet, there were countless grainy photos and videos and skeletal remains, most identified as coyotes with mange and the like.
    Mike read for hours, beginning a process of fast-track education on the subject. He paused to look at his watch when his stomach growled. Half past two and time for lunch. He checked out two books to glance over at mealtime and returned them within the hour. He found his table still unoccupied, and he sat down to read some more. When he felt he’d exhausted all the academic offerings, he opened his laptop and began throwing key words into Google. Within the pages and pages of crazed ruminations documented in large fonts, all caps, and eye-scorching neons, he found only a few articles of interest, mostly from skeptics. The true believers’ integrity was impugned by their incompetent design skills and lack of Internet savvy. But hours consuming hopeless videos and blog posts were hours he had not spent maddeningly clicking “Check Mail” in his email program, as if each next click would summon a message from her.
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    The clock alarm did not sound. If Mike skipped a shower and breakfast, he might make it to class on time. He was determined to do this since he had abandoned it halfway through his first day. He dressed speedily, grabbed his computer bag, remembering