Wood came over and grumbled at me. I blinked up at him. “What?”

“It's your turn to stay up and watch tonight,” he said.

I sat up straighter, not believing my ears.

“That's what you wanted, right? For me to trust you?”

Something inside me tugged hard. Yeah, for my friend to finally trust me again. That was a thing I wanted most.

I nodded, relishing that I could nod now. “Yes. That's what I want.” I was up and out of my doggy bed in seconds, and started moving toward the window, and the stool stationed beside it. I hadn't noticed, but Wood had stacked old, beat up yellow pages on top of it. It was the phone book for the greater Pittsburgh Metropolitan area, so it was pretty thick. Once I climbed up there and hopped on top, I was right at eye level with the gap in the wood covering the window. I turned to look at Wood, but he was already gone, having walked back into the kitchen area of the pizzeria, to where he slept under the old dish washer.

Yeah, he was still pissy, but if Wood was ready to trust me, maybe we were really friends again. And for my friends to really be my friends again, that was what I most wanted in the world.

That and to be human again…

And to know why the hell the aliens had done this to me… and the world?

I shook my head. Okay, maybe I would find all that out later on.

I settled down on top of the stool, on top of the old yellow pages, and started the staring. It was kind of boring. It wasn't like I was seeing all that much, just a sliver of the street out the boards covering the window. There was a patch of the lawn that stretched between the two main streets. And of course the little alien ship, which had sat there in the grass since the 1950s. And there were houses across the street. Nobody was in the them anymore, so there were no lights on, and no movement.

Of course, there was no electricity, either.

Every once in a while some garbage would blow by and down the street. And every once in a while I'd see a cat, or a dog, or a couple squirrels. Nothing much.

I looked down for a moment, pretty much just to do something besides stare out the gap in the boards. But when I looked back out the window I saw two massive wolves. They were enormous. And they were staring right at the pizzeria.

Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit…

The Travai.

If I could breathe, I would be hyperventilating about then. I sat there, looking out the window, not moving a muscle. Maybe they were like the Jurassic Park dinosaurs and couldn't see you unless you moved?

The wolves scented the air and stared. That alone made them very weird. Actual wolves wouldn't just stand there in one place, would they?

Suddenly those wolves jerked their heads to the right, and then skittered off to the left. That's when I saw a glow, almost like car headlights, coming down the street. I felt myself frowning. What could have scared of those gigantic wolves, and glowed?

A few beats later and I got my answer. Hovering down the street, glowing with a sickly white opacity, came the square Sleep Eater.

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

Holly fucking shitballs!

It was bigger than I remembered. Its radiance pulsing brighter, and then dimming as it floated down the street. And just like the wolves, it stopped as if it was staring right at me. I was shaking my head, completely unnerved and ready to run, I had to start screaming for everybody to wake up.

Could it go through walls?

But then it started to float away, down the street. I had to remember that it could only eat you when you were asleep. But, if it touched you, it would have your scent and could find you anywhere you went. It just had to wait for you to fall asleep.

And everyone slept.

Now that was some fucked up shit.

Well, I didn’t sleep. Not regularly. And I’m not even sure I needed it.

A few minutes later I saw two figures strolling down the street, their gigantic heads bobbing along as they went. Kind of like they were two Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade balloons, walking down the street together. It was Rory and Lorelai, the two trolls who had used me as a bowling pin.

Good God, was I going to see everything that had tried to kill us lately go past this window?

If so, did that mean that stray cats and dogs were waiting their turn to try to kill us? And squirrels?

I shook that off. That was a creepy thought. Though, I'd always thought cats were evil. Just something about the way they stared at you, and flicked their tails. Georgina’s cat, Rosie, was a prime example.

About ten minutes later I saw Oz and Miss Biddle walking down the street together, headed in the direction of downtown. Oz was talking, but Miss Biddle looked pretty peeved. Whether I was made out of terracotta or not, I could feel a chill just seeing her. She had been so close to killing all of us. And she had done such a horrible thing to Oz. Whether Georgina's magic seed worked or not, keeping her from killing us, I so didn't trust her. She had enjoyed hurting us, and she was nothing like Oz.

Not a thing like Oz.

That seemed to be the end of our rogues’ gallery of villains, and I was glad of it. But there were a few more things that passed by in the night. A baby doll—dressed in a diaper, a little blouse and bonnet tided around her chin—wobbled by. I wondered if there was a person in there, or if it was just an NPC the game had created. By the time I thought to pull up my stats box to look, it was gone.

Not having to go to the bathroom allowed me to see everything that passed by the window. And that was a good thing. The more I saw, the more I could report to Ellie, Wood and Teddy.

The final thing I spied that night, though, really did blow my mind. It kind of floated and glowed, like the glow-y bringer-of-death square thingy. But that's where the similarities stopped.

Vibrant purple, with neon feathers of multiple colors floating through it, it was the silhouette of a young girl.

It moved pretty fast, but I thought to pull up my stats box to examin it. I didn't get to read much before she floated past, but I did see a name.

Katie Harper.

I blinked a few times, trying to remember where I’d heard that name before. It was so familiar. It was a name that I'd grown up hearing… a lot.

But why?

After that, all I'd seen were a few birds land around the spaceship, searching for worms or bugs or some shit like that. When my friends woke up, I needed to tell them everything I’d seen. Especially Ellie. And I needed to ask if anyone knew who Katie Harper was.

***

The next morning, when Ellie woke up and came over, I told her what I'd seen while on watch. From the glowing square of death, seeing Oz and Miss Biddle walking down the street, the two werewolves, and how they stared at the pizzeria, and the purple girl silhouette named Katie Harper. “Her name sounds so familiar.”

When I was done, Ellie turned and looked at me, her eyebrows knitting together in consternation. “Oz and Miss Biddle were walking down the street?”

After all I’d just reported to her, especially the part about the two werewolves staring at the pizzeria, the only thing she had to comment about was Oz and Miss Biddle?

“Yeah,” I said, just looking at her. “Oz was doing that whole imparting thing, and Miss Biddle looked like she was sick of hearing it.”

Her expression didn't change, so I brought up the part I was most worried about. “The Travai were staring at the pizzeria. I wonder if they can smell the other Travis?”

Ellie shook her head. “I bleached the spot where his body was.”

“What about up on the roof, and the patched hole it… he caused?”

Her expression finally changed. “I should have thought of that.”

I tried to shrug, but though I could turn my head now side to side, shrugging my shoulders was still off the menu. “You can't think of everything.”

Suddenly the bottle of bleach was in her hand again, pulled out of her inventory. “I'll go up there now and bleach the site, and then I'll bleach everywhere I can remember that thing was. Maybe that'll help.”

I nodded. “Maybe.”