Page 4 of The Planetary Systems Preservation Committee Decided We Needed a Nanny

With those parting words, he taps a few buttons on the digital vambrace on his arm, and he disappears with another deafening crack.

I immediately text Bee.

Me: So. I fed an alien. They are definitely vampires.

Bee: I am in the middle of triaging a party of twenty three people who decided to stomp on the roof of a house so hard it collapsed, and somehow your text message is infinitely more important than saving these idiots’ lives.

Me: Save the idiots. I’ll tell you all about it when you get here.

Bee: I’m not sure I can wait that long.

Me: It’s not that interesting.

Bee: Only you would feed a vampire and turn around to say it’s not that interesting. I’ve got to get a moron to ice his head. I’ll call you on my break.

Me: I’ll see you when you get here.

Bee: You’re an asshole.

I’m not the one with a job that doesn’t allow for real breaks. Bee’s the one who thrives in high pressure situations. She chose to be an ER nurse, and we all just have to live with the consequences of that choice.

Knowing that I need more sleep than I’m fixing to get, I give the TV one last look, watching the alien onscreen do whatever they’re doing. (It looks like admin work.) I don’t think that they’re going to suddenly change the message, so I retire for the night to my bedroom and dream of impossibly large aliens coming to save my life.

CHAPTER FOUR

Everyone has favorite people. We lie and tell others that we don’t have a favorite family member or favorite child or whatever, but we do. Even if we don’t admit it to ourselves, we do. Bee is my favorite. Hands down. I have three siblings, two sisters and an enby sibling, and I prefer Bee to all three of them. They probably also prefer Bee to me, but I’m Bee’s favorite, and I bet they’re also glad for that.

So when that bitch shows up at my house at seven thirty in the morning and barges into my room, I refrain from causing her bodily harm, and instead I throw the covers back and invite her in for a warm cuddle and sleep. She changes into her jammies and crawls into bed with me, snuggling in so she can ask me about the vampire alien I saved.

I tell her what happened and how, and we fall asleep while she’s thinking about how to respond. An hour and a half later, I get out of bed because I’m done being horizontal, and I want to know if there’s any movement on the alien invasion thing happening. I should be at work, but that ship sailed already. I called in, so they can’t tell me I’m a no call no show. I doubt I have a job still, but in light of the whole Armageddon thing, I’m not really sure my job is meaningful to anyone except me. Also, what happens if I don’t pay my bills? Is my landlord going to take me to court to have me evicted while there are aliens taking over the world? Nah.

I start scrolling through the news online as I prepare my morning cappuccino. I bought a fancy espresso maker specifically to save myself seven to twelve dollars a day, and let me tell you, this thing paid for itself in a month, plus I can buy whatever artisan beans I want. It's lovely. I highly recommend getting one if you’re the type to spend money regularly at a coffee shop. Even if I spend fifty bucks a month on really fancy beans, it’s still less than what I was hemorrhaging at the shop on the way to work every morning. So yeah, get yourself an espresso machine and some really fancy beans; your wallet will love you for it.

So the news, right? People are literally disappearing from their homes and places of business. No one has disappeared from their cars, which, let’s be honest, is a relief since those things are deadly. They disappear and a few minutes later, they’re back. So far, people think that the difference between before and after is that the aliens are removing the desire to do harm to the aliens and other humans.

One woman, talking to one of the social media journalists, says that her brother, who’d always been very loud about his opinions, disappeared, and when he came back, he was more peaceful than he’d ever been in his life. She says it’s the best thing she’s ever seen and she doesn’t care that the aliens are manipulating human brains.

“You know what? Peace is peace,” I mutter, considering my encounter with Lora again and wondering if he would have changed my mind if I’d been less receptive to helping him.

After making my cappuccino, I head back to the living room and turn the TV back on. All the channels are still broadcasting the alien administrator and the same scrolling message. Well, no, actually, I think it’s a different alien. This one isn’t nearly as scraggly as the last one, and they look younger, I guess. And they’re pallid like death, but the waxiness isn’t as off-putting as it was with the previous alien.

Or maybe having spoken to one of them, I’m getting used to the characteristics of the species. Who knows?

My phone buzzes as I’m watching one of my favorite online journalists talk about what she’s doing to prepare for the stall outs in the supply chain that are going to happen because of the aliens, and I swipe to answer the incoming call even though it’s probably spam. Who knows, maybe it’s some kind of news brief from the government. They call people, right?

“Hello?”

“Good morning, Ollie.” The voice on the other end is distinctly memorable.

“Lora? How did you get my—no, nevermind, that’s a stupid question. Good morning.” Aliens be doing alien things, amiright?

“Did you sleep well? I’ve learned that is a normal thing to ask in the morning,” Lora adds, but he sounds like he finds that a weirdly intrusive question. I don’t know, could just be how I’m interpreting alien inflection and not how it should be interpreted.

“Yes, I slept well. Considering I usually sleep like shit, that was unusual. How did you sleep?” I feel like testing the theory about whether he thinks the question is intrusive.

His reply comes in halting tones as if he’s struggling to get the words out. “My rest period was satisfactory.”

“I get the feeling you hate this question,” I chuckle, having a moment of cognitive dissonance that I am on the phone with a ScaryDarkAlienVampire right now. It’s weird, right? Surely, I’m not the only one struggling with this being the new reality.