Alien Coffee (2 page)

Sclurp stood aside and let her through the
door to the kitchen where she quickly went to the coffee maker and
began brewing a new pot, all the while keeping an eye on him. She
noticed that he smelled like ground up earthworms, which wasn’t as
unpleasant as one might think. It was mild and she only sensed it
when passing close. After pushing the button to brew, Jillian got a
plain coffee cup out of the cabinet.

“No, not that one. I like the yellow cup with
OMG on it. The coffee tastes best out of that one. It’s in the
dishwasher, which just finished running.” He opened the dishwasher
and grabbed the cup, setting it on the counter next to Jillian who
took a few nervous steps back. “That one.” He pointed at the mug
with a suction cup finger.

As soon as the coffee was done brewing, she
poured a cup and watched while he took it to the small kitchen
table. It was one of Jillian’s favorite places in the house. She
could sit next to the picture window that had a beautiful view of
the lakes, but wasn’t about to join him at that moment. She ran her
hands slowly down her plain blue blouse and jeans in an attempt to
calm herself. The alien didn’t sit, instead moving a chair out of
the way and squatting on bent legs. It reminded Jillian of a baby’s
bouncy chair. His legs even acted like springs.

“Have a seat, Jillian,” the alien told her,
gesturing toward the chairs around the table. “I promise I don’t
bite.” Sclurp waggled his eyebrow. “I do kiss though.” He made
kissy noises with his lips. “Do you have moral objections against
interspecies relations?”

Jillian was extremely disturbed, but hid it
the best she could while trying to find a solution that just
wouldn’t appear. She wished Raymond was there to punch the squishy
lips into its face. Instead, she leaned back against the counter
with her arms folded while glaring at the alien in the hopes it
would finish the coffee and get out.

“We have a serious problem,” Sclurp told her
with a look of worry. Jillian was quickly figuring out the facial
expressions, which were similar to human only more exaggerated.
“You’re not supposed to see me. If you do, you have to be turned
into an emo bunny.”

“Turned into an emo bunny? What in the world
does that mean?” Terror gripped her heart and panic drained the
strength from her legs, leaving her shaking. Jillian wanted very
much to run away, but couldn’t convince her body to take action.
Moreover, in all the books she had read, everyone who ran away got
blasted in the back.

Sclurp pulled out his ray gun, or whatever it
was, and held it up for her to see. He didn’t point it at her, much
to her relief. “This doesn’t kill people, it turns them into
animals.” He put it away and leaned forward. “We’re supposed to set
it for animals natural to the world we’re on, but every other world
in the galaxy has emo bunnies and I don’t think anyone will notice
that Earth doesn’t.”

“What’s an emo bunny and what do you mean,
‘We’? There are more of you?” Jillian asked in trepidation.

“Oh, dude. I wasn’t supposed to say that.
This is really bad.” He frowned at his coffee in thought. Then he
put his lips in it and made a noisy slurping sound. “Ahhh, that’s
good coffee. You make the best stuff, dude.” Sclurp visibly
relaxed. “I was about to freak out.”

“Quit calling me dude.” Jillian wanted to say
a lot more than that, but didn’t really know what to concentrate
on. She wondered if aliens were invading the planet in order to eat
them all or just suck their brains out.
Perhaps he’s a zombie
alien.
Jillian giggled suddenly.

Sclurp looked at her with narrowed eyes.
“There’s nothing funny about this. You’re in really big
trouble.”

“I haven’t done anything wrong,” Jillian
protested instantly and began to pace back and forth. “You broke
into
my
house. You stole
my
coffee and now you’re
threatening me. You’re the only one who did something wrong.” She
stopped and pointed an accusatory finger at him. “I bet you’re
going to be in big trouble when the others find out!” Jillian had
no idea if there really were others or if he would be in trouble or
not.

The alien pointed the ray gun at her. “Maybe
I should just shoot you now.”

There was something in his manner that made
Jillian think he was worried or scared. Running didn’t seem like an
option and she didn’t think she could overcome the alien
physically, so Jillian desperately tried
everything
that
came to mind. “If you turn me into an emo bunny, I won’t be able to
make coffee ever again. My husband would notice my disappearance
and search parties would be initiated to scour the area. I’m not
supposed to see you, which means you’re not supposed to be here
getting your fix of coffee.” She waved a hand at the cup that was
nearly finished. “I bet you’re the one who’s really in trouble . .
.
dude
!”

Sclurp stood straight and glared at her,
which was quite intimidating with three eyes. Jillian felt
outnumbered, but stood her ground. After a minute, he finally
relented. “Yeah. I’m really in trouble.” He squatted again and
finished the last of the coffee noisily.

I wonder how I missed hearing him drink
even with the device hiding his presence,
Jillian thought. Out
loud she suggested, “Perhaps we just don’t tell anyone and you
never ever come back here again.”

He shook his head. “It’s not that easy. I
need
coffee. We
all
need coffee.”

“How many more of you are there? Is this an
invasion?” Jillian asked worriedly.

“Invasion?” Sclurp asked incredulously. “What
is it with you humans? Every time one of you sees an alien there’s
suddenly an invasion and you have to destroy us or else we’ll suck
your livers out for lunch.” He rolled all three eyes. “I hope you
never make it into space. I’m pretty sure intergalactic
civilization would be destroyed in days.”

“I’d rather have my liver sucked out than
listen to your sarcasm,” Jillian stated dryly. A thought occurred
to her. “Why don’t you just make your own coffee? Why do you have
to steal mine?”

“Nah, we can’t do that. Coffee is one of the
most illegal drugs in the galaxy. Alarms would go off and we’d all
be arrested if we brought it into the station,” he admitted
casually while looking longingly at the cup.

“So you’re doing drugs and will get arrested
if anyone finds out,” Jillian stated with a sly smile. Sclurp
narrowed his eyes suspiciously. “You need me, you silly-looking
extraterrestrial dork. If I’m gone then you don’t get your fix. If
I report you to your superiors, then you’ll go to jail.” She
crossed her arms and raised her chin smugly.

Jillian stepped back when the alien stood. He
moved to the counter where the phone was, picked it up and held it
out with a shrewd wink of the rightmost eye. “Go ahead, call my
superiors.” She glared at him, her gut sinking at the call of her
bluff. Sclurp put it back and turned to her. “You’re right. I’m in
big trouble, but so are you. We have standing orders to transmute
anyone who sees us regardless of whose fault it is or if it’s
fair.”

Tears of despair welled in Jillian’s eyes in
spite of her best efforts to resist them. “So you’re going to turn
me into an emo bunny and there’s nothing I can do about it?” she
asked in a shaking voice.

“No!” Sclurp exclaimed, holding out a hand in
denial. “I’m not going to zap you. I wouldn’t actually do that.” He
shook his head and let out a slow, deep breath. “This is a really
big problem. We should talk to Nyxulla and Buffy. They’ll know what
to do. I’m just a technician.”

“Buffy?” Jillian asked in timid amusement.
“There’s an alien named Buffy?”

He grinned, the protruding lips turning
upward. “Its real name is too hard to say for any race and it
spends all its free time watching vampire shows. It’s super smart
though.”

“It?” Jillian asked, not knowing what else to
say.

“Yeah, everyone of their race is androgynous,
so we can’t say he or she. It’s a BEM on top of that.”

“BEM?” One-word questions were all she could
come up with. Maybe it would delay her death or transmutation a
little longer if she kept asking them.

“Don’t you know anything?” he demanded,
throwing his hands in the air. “BEM is short for bug-eyed-monster.
Buffy has the biggest bug eyes I’ve ever seen and its race is
classified as monsters. I wouldn’t hold that against them though.
They’re really wonderful people.”

“Oh . . . right . . . I’ll keep that in
mind.” It was Jillian’s turn to do some eye rolling.

“Let’s go talk to them,” Sclurp suggested.
“They’ll know what to do and that way I won’t have to zap you.”
Jillian set her jaw stubbornly and was about to refuse, but he
persisted. “We really are in big trouble. I
have
to zap
anyone who sees me, but I’ll be in trouble too and have to undergo
reconditioning for drinking coffee, being seen and having to zap
you.” He put his face in his front two hands and patted his own
shoulder with the third while taking a deep breath. Then he looked
her in the eyes. “This is going to go real bad for both of us
unless Buffy and Nyxulla come up with a solution.”

Jillian stared at him in dismay. Her guts
were all tied up and she wanted to cry or run away. Raymond
wouldn’t be home until that night and his cell phone service would
be spotty on the golf course where he worked. She didn’t even know
if the alien would zap her before she could make the call. Jillian
looked into the alien’s eyes. They didn’t seem fake, nor did the
rest of him appear to be a costume of any sort. She pinched herself
once more in the hopes it was a nightmare. Tears began to trickle
down her cheeks when she felt the twinge and nothing changed.

Sclurp gestured for her to stop. “Hey now,
don’t do that leaky stuff with your eyes. It’s silly. They’ll find
a solution. The station is just up the mountain a short distance.”
He went to the kitchen door, opened it and gestured for her to go
through as any proper alien gentleman would do. “Let’s go.”

She nodded wordlessly and went outside with
slumped shoulders. Sclurp followed her across the dirt driveway
lined by flowers Jillian had planted early that spring. He took the
lead, heading through a grassy field and up the forested
incline.

***

They followed a trail Jillian loved but
hadn’t walked the last year or so and she was grateful for the
decision to wear sneakers that morning. A clearing at the top
overlooked the north lake and had incredible views of the
surrounding mountains. For some reason, she became sad whenever
walking up the trail lately to the point of staying off it entirely
in order to avoid depression. The feeling was coming back as they
walked. Jillian slowed down and despaired over her fate. “I just
don’t think I can continue. Go ahead and kill me or turn me into a
bunny or whatever it is you’re going to do.”

Sclurp turned and looked at her in surprise.
They both jumped at rustling in the nearby bushes. A black bunny
with purple streaks in its hair darted deeper into the underbrush.
The alien pulled on its cheeks with the suction fingers of both
front hands while Jillian stared disinterestedly. Sclurp stared at
the bushes, then at Jillian and then back again. He did that a few
more times before raising a finger in revelation. “Oh! That makes
sense. You’re not immune to them.” He pulled out the ray gun,
fiddled with a screen that popped out of the top and pointed it at
her.

That caught Jillian’s notice and brought her
out of the funk. She put her hands up and backed down the trail a
few steps, ready to run.

He zapped her. Yellow lights on the ray gun
glowed and it made a barely audible humming sound before going dim
and quiet.

Jillian looked at her hands, expecting to see
fluffy rabbit’s feet form. She patted her body, checking if fur was
growing. When nothing physical happened she stared at Sclurp. He
was putting away his ray gun and patting it. “There. Now the
bunnies won’t make you sad.”

She tried to think of a question, but there
were so many millions of questions jumping to the front of her mind
that all that came out was a grunt. Questions about emo bunnies,
aliens, invasions, how big the universe was, and many more flashed
past. What she finally
did
ask made no sense at all. “Are
there more pebbles on Earth than there are stars in the
universe?”

Sclurp raised his eyebrow. “That’s an odd
question, but no. There are many more stars.” He began walking up
the trail again, gesturing for her to follow. “If you’re wondering
why I zapped you, it made you immune to the gloom of the emo
bunnies.”

A proper question formed in Jillian’s mind.
“What exactly are emo bunnies? Seriously, it sounds like a bad joke
or a story for demented children or something.” She did notice that
the apathy she felt a moment ago was completely gone.

“Emo bunnies are everywhere in the universe.
They hop around making everybody miserable.” Sclurp’s three legs
made it very easy for him to overcome obstacles on the rocky
terrain. Jillian had to move quickly to keep up and was soon
panting. “It’s a defense mechanism they have. Anything that attacks
them gets sad and usually leaves them alone. Anything that has the
misfortune to stumble onto a family or group of bunnies becomes
suicidal and may run off a cliff or bite off a leg or
something.”

Sclurp effortlessly climbed over a fallen
tree trunk on the trail. Jillian scrambled after. “This is getting
silly. Aliens named Buffy, emo bunnies that make people suicidal
and . . . I don’t know what else, but it’s all just plain silly,”
she informed him rationally.

“Good. No one will believe you if you tell
them then. That may help to keep both of us out of trouble,” Sclurp
stated hopefully. “Here we are.” They had just come to Jillian’s
favorite clearing and he gestured grandly at the open field.