The Grey Ones

The Grey Ones is a short story by J.B. Priestly. Published in 1953, it’s a narrative within the science fiction genre that was so popular then. Taking place in England when a successful businessman, Mr. Patson, becomes concerned that some sort of aliens were taking over earthlings, one by one. The Grey Ones indeed turns out to be about evil aliens, with a horrifying ending. The story is worth reading on its own and at less than 18 pages it doesn’t take long. But the dread lasts, particularly now when today’s equivalent are not weird shape-shifting toads, but shape-shifting control freaks. On a crazed rampage using any ideology to destroy America’s constitutionally limited government. Marxist “freebies”, Marxist “climate” and Marxist “influenzas”.  Out to destroy government “by the people” through an authoritarian global bureaucracy alien to ordinary life. One that over the centuries had created prosperity and longevity that could only have been accomplished through constitutionally protected freedoms.