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The party was exactly as he’d feared. The same people he saw every day at school, along with spouses and relatives of the hosts, milled about in uncomfortable costumes till someone guessed who they were. Nothing of interest popped up in the conversation other than George Martin, his fellow math teacher, telling Louis that he planned to leave on sabbatical after the holidays. Louis did not have any real friends on the faculty besides George, so the news depressed him.
Jack forced everyone to follow on the usual brag tour, after which Aileen plied them with sweet, spiked punch. Louis was planning his escape when Jack herded everyone into the family room, turned on the wide screen and popped in a DVD.
“Our trip to Africa in June,” Jack announced. “We’re starting up a program in West Cameroon to help a school there; maybe some of you will volunteer in the summer? You’ll meet some of the students and teachers in this film.” Out went the lights.
The presentation reminded him of church basement missionary meetings his parents had forced him to sit through when he was a kid. It was hard to believe that at thirty-eight years of age, he had to endure this sort of thing again. Not that he didn’t care about Africans. Dutifully, he wrote out a check.
By the time he pulled into his driveway, it was almost 1 a.m. Not used to staying up late or drinking that much, he felt so punchy he almost failed to notice the odd glow coming from the back of the house. When he did, he panicked.
The neighbors’ houses were dark and silent. No cars revved, no dogs barked, which was most unusual. Indeed, there seemed to be a strange silence over everything.
He pulled out the .22 he carried in his glove compartment and crept around the side of the house. What he saw caused him to drop the gun and wet his pants before passing out.
He came to inside the house, foggy as to what had happened. Someone had carefully laid him on his bed, cleaned up his mess and dressed him in sweat pants that had been lying on his closet door. These were, oddly, on backwards. The gun was lying on the night stand. Frantically, he checked to see if it was loaded, which it was. Why would a burglar or killer return his loaded gun?
The hallway floor creaked, and a shadowy figure appeared the doorway. It was very tall… frighteningly so. The head touched the top of the door jamb and appeared to be oddly shaped.
Louis’ heart thumped before settling into a loud hammering.
“Sorry to disturb your serenity, Louis Pickett,” said the stranger in a surprisingly high-pitched voice, “but we have chosen your home as the precise spot for our headquarters. Just for a short time, perhaps a year or two. We will do our best not to disturb your normal life routine. Please lie back and rest, as there is nothing pressing for you to currently perform.”
Louis scrambled for the gun, got his finger stuck in the trigger, and shot the ceiling. His head felt as it were made of oil with fuzz in it, his stomach a bottomless pit swarming with darting bats. The figure moved into the room and stopped. It raised its hand, and the barrel of the gun grew blistering hot. Louis let it drop.
“Violence is never a solution,” said the figure, still in shadow. “If you prefer, we can sedate you, and you will be able to sleep for one or two days.”
“No!” shouted Louis, fumbling to sit up. “Who are you? What are you?” He was certain he was having a heart attack. His hands were numb.
“We are Nineed and Leegar from a place with which neither you nor your government is familiar. Somewhere far from here and of no importance to you. We need to study your world environmentally and culturally first. I, Nineed, am the….anthropologist, while Leegar is the biologist. It is possible that another associate will join us later. We will not annoy you. You may continue with your normal life routine. You do not have to feed us; we have our own food sources.”
“Not annoy me?” Louis shrilled through clattering teeth. “Are you insane? Are you…?”
Nineed stepped a few inches closer. His arm moved into the faint light from a street lamp outside the window. Louis saw, with a stab to his already hellish stomach, that the arm was longer than normal. When Nineed raised it to make a gesture, the now visible hand at its end was long and bony.
“I’m going to vomit,” said Louis, which he immediately did over the side of the bed.
“Uh,” exclaimed the unwanted visitor. “A rank odor. This would be the undigested content of your internal organ for the consuming of food?”
Louis once again fainted.
About Margaret Karmazin
