He slowly drove up the residential street, stopping every few moments to check house numbers. The homes on this street were all set back from the road just a bit. They looked very similar, and he was having trouble finding the place. Finally he saw the right house number.
He wanted to cry. The aliens seemed to know whenever he delivered here. The last three times he’d come here they’d been waiting. He couldn’t afford to lose this job, so he pulled up slowly and shut off the car. He shut off the lights and scoped out the place a little first. Not that it would matter to ‘them’. It never did. ‘They’ didn’t care if they got him fired.
It looked quiet. The house was dark. The bushes around the front door were a little over grown and the orange sodium lights from down the block did nothing to illuminate it. The red brick house positively reeked of ill will, and he really didn’t want to go near it. Not again.
Unfortunately, he needed to get this pizza delivered. There were no more delivery jobs in
He started down the long walkway. There were no lights on in the house and he could only hope no one was home, but you never could tell. Five steps down, now ten, fifteen. He was only a few steps from the front porch, and starting to think they wouldn’t get him this time, when the strange noises started.
It was a buzzing at first, then a long low humming, and finally the voices chanting in an alien tongue. He froze in place. He wanted desperately to run but his body would not obey. His head darted around trying to look every direction at once. Suddenly there they were.
Three robed figures rose up from behind the bushes. Their faces glowed an eerie green in the darkness. The two on the side didn’t move, but the one in the middle raised its short arm and pointed straight at the box in Artie’s hands.
Eyes locked on the short creatures, he sat the box on the small front porch and backed slowly away. The noises and humming grew in volume. He spun around and made a break for his delivery car, before they could begin to probe him or worse yet experiment with the synthetic skin again. In less than a minute he was inside the car, engine started, and thanking whatever fate had let him escape again. With one more glance at the glowing creatures, who seemed to be levitating over the bushes, he put the car into gear and sped away.
As Artie’s tail lights sped out of sight, a familiar chuckle could be heard. The trio of aliens, who had indeed been floating in the air, seemed to dive over the bushes. The trio lay there now strangely flat, and where they had been stood a shadowy figure.
The humming and chanting which had reached a crescendo was abruptly shut off and the figure moved from behind the bushes holding a small portable CD player. He rolled the three ‘aliens’ up and tucked them under his arm. The front door of the house was opened and the two items tucked inside, then the figure reached down and eagerly picked up the pizza offering.
The figure opened the box and took a whiff of the ‘offering’ then began talking to himself in a congratulatory manner. “Thought I’d NEver find a USE for Timothy’s CHRISTMAS present.”
He settled in and took a bit of pizza then looked guiltily out the window. “The things I HAVE to DO to make ENDS meet on that PITance THEY see FIT to call a SALary.”