Page 5 of I Punched an Alien and Now We’re in Couples Therapy

Porsha held up her hands, eyes darting around the room. “All right, nobody panic, she couldn’t have gone far, she’s only eight inches long.”

“That’s worse!” Jackie screamed, jumping up next to me. “That little death bringer could be anywhere! Girl, why the fuck didn’t you lock the cage?”

Porsha crossed her arms over her chest. “Okay, there’s a lot of finger-pointing going on, so why don’t we all just take a breath and look around the room? She probably just curled up somewhere warm.”

Carefully, very carefully, Porsha and I searched the dressing room for any signs of the viper. Yet among all the musical equipment, changing outfits, and the small outlet store amount of makeup scattered among every available surface, we may as well have been searching for a needle in a haystack. One where you died if the needle pricked you. Fun stuff.

“Vipers, you’re up!” Colton said, peeking his head through the door. When he noticed Porsha and me searching around the floor while Jackie was still firmly planted on the counter, he cocked his head to the side and asked, “What are you doing?”

“Well, fuck. Now what do we do?” Jackie asked.

I got to my feet and put on my best customer service smile. “Hey Colton, could we maybe go on after the next band? We kind of—”

“Absolutely not.” The schedule’s made well in advance, if your band can’t compete, you automatically forfeit.”

“We just need—”

“No exceptions, perform or don’t. There’re plenty of other bands waiting to take your spot. Are you coming or not?”

Both my bandmates looked at me. I clenched my teeth, calming my nerves. “We’re coming.”

Colton nodded and left.

I snatched my jacket from the counter and put it on. Then quickly checked the inside pocket just to make double sure there was no snake hiding inside. Thankfully, the pockets were empty, save for my pistol and lip gloss. “Looks like it’s now or never. Grab your shit, girls; we’ll lock the door on the way out and find the snake after.”

* * *

Nothing got your blood pumping like the moment just before you struck your first chord onstage. The dimmed lights, the silent anticipation of the crowd, the pounding of your heart as your mind dances on the cusp of that high you can only get from roaring applause.

I steadied my breathing as the announcer made his introduction. Up here I wasn’t just a fry cook. Up here, I wasn’t a forgotten member of my own family. Up here, people listened.

And when the music started to play, the magic of their attention felt like gold in my veins. Unfortunately, the music was far too loud for me to actually listen to them. At the first scream of “SNAKE!” I thought maybe the crowd had come up with a new stage name for one of us. It wasn’t until I heard the telltale hiss against my ear that I looked to my shoulder to find Piper half uncoiled from her hiding place in the skull of my jacket. In the corner of my eye, I could see Porsha throw her drumsticks aside and lunge for me. She wasn’t fast enough. The snake poised to strike and shot out to bite my face.

A blinding white light flashed. The snake’s fangs were frozen mere inches from my eye. I couldn’t move an inch. My body became weightless as I was hurled toward something in the sky.

“Is that a damn spaceship?”

Chapter 2

Blair

Monsoon 54, Year 10, Waffles

Terrible squawking noises woke me out of a dazed slumber. I rubbed at my tired eyes, only to be startled by the sound of sloshing water as I brought my hand up. I opened my eyes to see a cracked glass pane that obscured most of my view. A thick green liquid came up to my neck and gushed out of the crack in the glass in a steady stream. Just beyond the glass, I could make out the blurred shapes of what looked like panicked birds fighting off a much bigger, snarling blob.

There was a shriek, then an orange bird slammed against the glass, causing the crack to spiderweb even further until the glass broke completely, and I fell from the tank in a rush of the green liquid. The room was in utter chaos. Freaky looking owl creatures were locked in battle with the most pissed off lion I’d ever seen. Rows of cylinder tanks like the one I’d been in lined the room, each of them held their own floating unconscious occupant.

“What…what’s happening?”

Someone screamed, and I followed the noise to find a woman with wild red hair holding what looked like a cattle prod. She swung at the freak owls like a mad batter before bolting out of the room, several of the owls hot on her trail. The lion noticed the girl’s departure and tried to run after her. A blue owl zapped him with his cattle prod. The lion gave off an enraged roar before sinking his teeth into the bird’s skull. There was a crunch, and the bird fell limp. The lion tossed it aside and took off in the direction the girl ran.

The remaining birds flew out of the room in absolute chaos. One chirped loudly into a mic on the wall while owls in white coats rushed in to cart off the wounded. Several larger looking birds grabbed cattle prods from a shelf on the wall and chased after the lion.

I slowly stepped away from my broken pod. Glass crunched beneath my boots, alerting the owl shouting commands into the mic. His large yellow eyes locked in on me. Both of us froze to a standstill. Then the owl shrieked, pointing at me with his little clawed hand as he began shouting new commands into the mic.

I whipped my pistol from my jacket and took aim, but water gushed out of the barrel. Not knowing what else to do, I pocketed the pistol, picked up the unconscious orange owl from the pile of broken glass, and chucked it at the screeching snitch, effectively shutting him up. Before I could find out who the bird was calling, I darted out of the room toward where I saw the girl and lion escape. For all I knew, the redhead had found a way out, and I sure as hell didn’t want to stay in the creepy-ass lab room with the rest of the floaty tube women.

Rushing down the hall, I followed the sound of screeching and snarls into a room to see the lion jump into an oval-shaped pod. The doors closed just in time in the owls’ faces. They beat against the doors of the pod, frantically trying to pry it open. Air hissed around the tubes connecting the pod to the ceiling, and the pod unhooked from the dock with a loud clunk.