Chapter Three: Anyone Hungry?

Chapter Three

A door hissed open on the odd craft and a strange creature stepped out of the ship. It was shaped like a snowman, with three legs and arms but no other distinguishable markings. One by one, the aliens exited the craft. Some of them began unloading wire contraptions with wings. The grotesque beings were attracting the stares of everyone around.

They worked methodically in silence. They weren't the only ones being perfectly silent; everyone in the vicinity remained as quiet as they could. Even their breathing was muted. Everyone, including myself, were so overwhelmed with curiosity that we felt any sound that disrupted the flow of the creature's work, would result in an outcome less than desirable. No one really knew what these things would do if a disturbance occurred. It seemed to me that these were being directed by an unseen force so a disturbance of sorts may not have even disturbed them.

The unidentifiable creatures dispersed around the various sites for them to examine. Two and three of them poured over every vehicle near. Some peered into the convenience store or the randomly placed computer store across the street. Others climbed into the wire flying machines.

Only one creature could fit in the wire doohickey at once but there were enough of them for each creature to have their own. The creatures had to lie down to get into their crafts. Once they were locked into position and the craft was airborne, I saw a familiar shape emerge.

The thing was a four winged ornithopter with the tips of each translucent wing died red with a slight gold hue. There were three spheres at the front of the orthopter, between the wings, that contoured to the creature. Behind these was what appeared to be a metal fuel tank. Behind the fuel tank were three canisters containing beautifully colored glass orbs. The thing resembled a dragonfly.

The creatures began beating on everything imaginable so naturally, the police were summoned, although they must have been called earlier than I would have expected. The police took cover behind their hovercrafts and ordered the beasts to stop what they were doing. I felt that such statements were futile. These were creatures from another world; they’d never been exposed to English and didn't have visible ears. I didn't even know if they had the mental capacity to understand English.

The creatures continued their antics but before the police could fire their guns, an old man with wild white dreadlocks and wearing little more than a shred of cloth over his groin, ran out of the nearby woods. "Stop! Don't shoot them!" He shouted. "They’re the Catrions, the foragers of the galaxy! If they sense both superior technology and hostility, they will attack mercilessly. Although they are vastly inferior to us, they will reign triumphantly over the human race because of your trigger fingers. It’s true! I have seen it in a vision!" He was waving his arms wildly. "Let us all pray for a monkey to be our savior!" he fled back to the forest.

I was awoken form my thoughts by a blood curdling scream erupting from the passenger seat. One of the so called Catrions had broken the passenger window and Helga was crawling away. There was a tapping at the rear windshield behind me. When I turned another Catrion had shattered the glass.

Hubert exploded out of the store with a fury unlike any I'd seen before. At first I thought he was coming for me but no, he didn't love me. I was only related to him because he married my mother.

Hubert shoved the Catrion aside and began screaming for Helga to grab his hand. I gave the Catrion that had been in Hubert's way a spare glance.

It was flat on the ground and not moving. There was a pink liquid seeping into a puddle around the fallen alien. The black material that enclosed the thing didn't seem to have ruptured but it was apparent that the Catrion was severely wounded or perhaps even dead.

Helga was paralyzed where she sat. Hubert stretched his arm out but Helga still didn't move. She was too terrified to relax her overly tense muscles. Hubert wrenched open the door and pulled her out. He turned, with his mistress over his shoulder, and sprinted back to the sanctuary of the store. It made sense to me that Hubert would abandon me. If I died, Hubert could have an innumerable number of women over and perhaps even invite them to bed without fear of an intrusion on my part.

Just as Hubert came within an arm's reach of the door, a Catrion sidled in front of him and held something it had been carrying that looked somewhat like a toilet in front of Hubert's face. There was a pop, similar to a heated popcorn kernel, and a ball of boiling purple acid jettisoned out of the odd weapon. The six inch ball of acid found itself smothering Hubert's head. I watched Hubert collapse to the ground, writhing in agony; Helga rolled frantically out of his arms. Hubert's eyes boiled out of their sockets. His flesh disintegrated in small patches at first and totally melted as the acid progressed. Slowly the acid drizzled down Hubert's neck, eating away everything it touched. All of the blood that leaked from Hubert's face dissolved in the acid. The most interesting effect was the way the cartilage in Hubert's ears broke into little bits and fell away. When the acid was used up, Hubert flopped backwards with piles of smoldering hair littering the shape of Hubert's body. His head was little more than a skull attached to a spine protruding from a scorched and sealed half of a neck.

Upon seeing the death of Hubert the police let loose dozens of electrical bolts from their standard issue beam weapons. Each shot had perfect accuracy and struck a Catrion but they had no apparent effect. Correction, the Catrions looked towards the cops, sort of. It was difficult to tell where they were looking at; their three eyes were on the top of their head and placed in a random triangle.

At first I thought my eyes were deceiving me when the Catrions vanished, even the injured one.

The vessel the Catrions had arrived in closed its hatch and lifted into the just above the police officers' heads. A hole of sorts opened up on the bottom of the ship; a fierce wind began to spiral towards the hole. It created a suction so strong that Hubert's truck rolled over. I wasn't hurt badly; I just received a few minor cuts and bruises.

As I watched, the police officers be swallowed by the powerful vacuum, all I could think of was what Hubert's death would do to me. Would I end up like my cousin, Jade Hisui Cateye? Would I bounce from foster home to foster home? Only time would tell.