Total pages in book: 74
Estimated words: 69936 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 350(@200wpm)___ 280(@250wpm)___ 233(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69936 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 350(@200wpm)___ 280(@250wpm)___ 233(@300wpm)
A mask covered her face, like the kind you’d find in a Halloween store, maybe, but creepily, it was made to resemble a distorted human face. The dress draped over her oddly, like it was trying to accommodate something strangely shaped and much larger than expected beneath it. She reached out to the cashier, her hands covered in gloves—those big ones you use to scrub down the kitchen. There seemed to be some discussion before she turned and started for the door.
“This doesn’t make any sense,” I said, mostly because it couldn’t have been Daddy.
I considered that it could have been how he looked when he first arrived. But didn’t he say he’d come right to the club after he arrived? Was this another alien? No, surely it’d be too big of a coincidence for another alien to arrive around the same time as Daddy.
“Well, it could be—”
“Keep watching,” Roger insisted.
Fuck, there was more?
I hit Play again, nervous that Daddy’s an alien and I’m scared this will lead back to him was written all over my face.
As the masked woman headed for the door, something slipped out of the bottom of her dress—a tentacle! It was different from Daddy’s, which I’d become much more familiar with the more we messed around. But while Daddy’s was smooth and a light pink color, this had rigid edges and was darker, maybe even black. Could this be an appendage he hadn’t shown me yet?
“Well, that’s definitely strange,” was as much as I was willing to tell my friend, whose brows creased.
“This person has a fucking tail, and it’s just strange?”
“It might not be a tail,” I said, faster than I probably should have, earning another look from Roger.
I really need to shut the fuck up before I say something really stupid.
“That’s a fucking tail, Charlie, on someone who’s clearly wearing a disguise from a costume shop, which was robbed right after this UFO crashed in town.”
“You don’t know that a UFO crashed in town.” Even as I said the words, I realized how defensive I sounded. It reminded me of Mom asking if I might be attracted to boys and me saying, “You don’t know that I’m attracted to boys.” I bit my tongue to keep myself from saying anything even stupider.
“That’s a fucking alien,” Roger snapped, like he couldn’t bear for me to stand there being so naive when it was right in my face. He wasn’t all that quiet about it either, so we earned a few looks from the patrons—and now that I was noticing, there were actually quite a few people in the café today. If I hadn’t been so concerned about Daddy being caught by a bunch of online alien sleuths, I might’ve appreciated that more people were coming to the café when I was on duty.
I couldn’t dwell on that, though. I had to think quickly. “It’s weird, that’s for sure. It’s probably AI.”
“The guys who run the pod are all techy and catch that stuff all the time. It’s not AI.”
“It’s a person in a costume. That tail could be a part of it.”
“They don’t sell anything like that at that store,” he pointed out.
I wish I could come up with excuses faster than he could refute them.
“It doesn’t even matter, really, does it?”
“If there’s an alien running around Harmony Springs?”
A few more gazes turned our way.
“Roger…I don’t know. Does it really matter?”
“We’ll see. I signed up to work with the pod’s team to investigate.”
My chest tightened. “The pod’s team? What does that mean?”
“We’re going alien hunting.”
“Alien hunting? What does that entail?”
The thought of a bunch of nerds hunting my Daddy stressed me out.
“There were a few sightings in this part of town the other night, things that blew up on Reddit threads. The sightings are at night, so we think that’s when the alien is active, so we’ll be going there then.”
“What part of town?”
“Suddenly curious, are you?”
“No, I’m really not. So how about you let me get back to work? I’ve got coffee grounds on the floor to clean up.” As I spoke, I sent the video link to myself, then handed him his phone.
“Okay, I’ve gotta do some more research tonight,” he said. “Wanna meet up later for drinks?”
“I was gonna spend tonight with Daddy.”
Now I really had a reason—something I was nervous my good friend might catch on to, but he shrugged, maybe too busy investigating in his own mind. “Cool, cool. Have fun.”
I grabbed a rag, and as I squatted down, Roger leaned over the counter and said, “Hey, when did Daddy move to town? Wasn’t that around the time this thing was seen?”
“Um…”
“And then he only goes by the name Daddy…and calls people weird nicknames…” He raised a skeptical brow, though I knew him well enough to know he was joking.