Alien Life on Planet Earth

© Daniel W. Davis

It was Jessica Van Allen who answered the door, and a look of shock filled her face as she brushed away the blond bangs that had fallen over her eyes.

Seven people stood on her front porch: three couples and a man, Kevin McCoy, whose wife had been too frightened to accompany him. The group was bunched tightly together, despite the spacious porch.

"Hello," Jessica said. Her voice was soft, hesitant.

"We need to talk," Veronica Creely said. "Where is your husband?"

"I…I'll get him." Over her shoulder: "Dale? Could you come here a second?"

The group waited impatiently for him, shifting from foot to foot, husband and wife glancing at each other. When he showed up he, too, expressed surprised, his thick mustache wiggling in unease.

"Welcome," he said, and no more.

William Thompson stepped forward. "You need to leave here."

Jessica shook her head. "Leave?"

Kevin McCoy nodded. "Yeah. Leave. We want you out of this neighborhood."

"We've decided you can't stay here any longer," Veronica said. "We've let you stay here long enough."

"We did our deed," James Creely added. "Now it's time for someone else to take responsibility."

"I don't understand," Dale said, putting his arm around his wife. "I'm afraid I'll have to ask you all to leave our porch."

" We are asking you to leave our neighborhood," Leanne Black said.

"In fact," added her husband William, "we aren't asking , we're telling . Leave our neighborhood."

A few "yeah's" rippled through the group. Dale and Jessica stared at them. The street beyond was quiet; what few neighbors weren't gathered on the Van Allen's front porch were cloistered inside their homes, either peaking through the curtains or studiously ignoring the events by watching television. Somewhere a dog barked, and Dale and Jessica winced, as though the dog were immediately before them and frothing at the mouth.

"Look," said Courtney Thompson. "It would just be best for everyone if you left. Okay? We don't want to hurt you or anything. We just don't want you in our neighborhood any more."

"I can't think of anything we've done," Dale said. "Did we do anything wrong?"

"You've done enough by just being here!" Courtney's husband spat. "Get the hell out!"

"Yeah!" said someone, perhaps Leanne Black.

"Yeah!" said someone else, most certainly Kevin McCoy.

"You've poisoned the air here," William Black said. "When I breathe I feel…I feel polluted . Like I'm contaminated . I feel like I'm dying right here, right now, just from breathing in the scent of you!"

Dale shrugged. "I'm sorry, Bill. I don't know what to say. I can't smell anything."

"Can you even smell?" asked Kevin McCoy. "Or is it something you're pretending to do for our sake?"

"Of course we can smell," Jessica said, smiling. "We can smell just as well as you can."

"Monsters," William Thompson said, his voice low.

"Oh my God," Courtney Thompson said, her voice even.

"Listen," Dale said, raising his free hand. "We've been here five months already. We've hurt no one. Have we? Can anyone say they've been harmed by our presence?"

"Our son was bullied at school," James Creely said. "The other kids told him he lived on Monster Alley, and they shoved him into a puddle of mud."

"That's horrible ," Jessica said. Her eyes moistened. "Henry is a delightful boy. To think that kids can be so cruel."

"Can you monsters even have children?" asked Kevin McCoy.

"Oh, absolutely." Jessica beamed at him. "Dale and I have been discussing it recently; I mean, we were going to wait until we'd gotten settled in, but we both think we've arrived—"

"They can reproduce ," said someone, a woman. A male voice answered her: "Sweet Jesus."

"I…I can't even imagine it!" Veronica Creely shook her head. "Oh my God. Oh my God."

"We were thinking of Ralph, for a boy," Jessica said. "We hadn't decided on a girl's name; I've always loved Leanne." She smiled as Mrs. Black. "If you wouldn't mind."

" Mind ?" Leanne Black shook her head. " Mind ?"

Her husband put a hand on her shoulder, said something low in her ear. She stopped shaking, but she stared at Jessica with wide eyes. Jessica held her gaze for a few moments before looking away.

"You have one day," James Creely said. "One day. This time tomorrow, that's five o'clock tomorrow, we want you gone. Do you understand?"

Dale smiled at them. "I'm afraid that just won't do. I need to put in my two week's notice at the office, and Jessica here can't just leave the school mid-semester."

"She works with the children ," Veronica Creely said, even though Jessica was merely a secretary in a room in the high school the students seldom visited.

"Oh my God," said Courtney Thompson, as though it were news to her, as though she didn't run into Jessica several times a day at the school.

"I love the children," Jessica said. She glanced at her husband. "It was working at the school that made Dale and I decide to go ahead and have a baby."

"One day!" James Creely yelled, and his wife added, "You'd leave tonight if you knew what was best for you!"

"We just can't leave," Dale said. He shook his head. "I'm sorry. But our lives are here."

" Our lives are here!" said Kevin McCoy. " Our lives!"

"Please," Courtney Thompson said, while her husband said, "Monsters."

"No."

The group looked at Dale. His voice held them enraptured; one word, but all eyes were turned to him, except for Jessica, who kept her eyes downcast, a regretful look on her face. Her husband's arm tightened around her, and she leaned into him, nodding slowly against his shoulder.

Dale shook his head. "No. We will not leave here. This is our home now, and we like it here. If you don't enjoy it, then you can all leave."

"Preposterous," said William Black. "Leanne and I will never move."

"Never," echoed Veronica Creely.

"I'm sorry, but we just can't," said Courtney Thompson.

"Okay then." Dale smiled at them suddenly, his seriousness gone. "We won't leave, and you don't want to leave. I suppose the solution is simple." Without another word, he and Jessica turned around and walked back into the house, shutting the door. The neighbors gathered on their porch glanced among themselves. William Thompson reached up, as if to ring the doorbell again, but his wife lowed his hand.

They slowly drifted off the porch, back to their houses. Dale and Jessica watched them from the front window.

"I hate this," Jessica said.

"Me too." Dale kissed her forehead. "But we can't keep running, my dear. Not if we're going to have a baby."

By morning, all the houses in the neighborhood were empty, cars still in the driveways, clothes still in the dressers. A dog still barked, somewhere down the street, but no cars drove by, and no children came out onto the lawn to play in the sprinklers. Only the Van Allen house remained occupied, and that morning as Jessica and Dale left to go to work—they carpooled—they smiled sadly at each other, and held hands the whole way down the block, barely paying any attention to the road before them.