Maria walked past a statue of a huge alien wearing a silver jumpsuit, its gigantic, green, bulbous head towering over her. She gazed at it wearily, feeling unease at its grotesque dimensions and it’s long rubbery fingers.

Which twitched.

“AAAAAAAAhhhhhhh” Maria screamed and, grabbing the first thing she could find, which happened to be a broom someone had left beside the display, she began beating the alien with it as it reached out to her.

“Hey. Stop. Wait.” The alien cried out, shying away from her attack. Then to Maria’s horror it reached up and pulled off its head.

“Milton?” she said with wonder. “What are you doing?” Maria had known Milton, the owner of the UFO Center, for years. Her mother supplied him with the various alien paraphernalia he sold to tourists and he came into the café almost ever day for lunch. “You scared me to death! Don’t DO that!”

Milton pulled of the rubber alien gloves and explained. “Well, I had to make sure that you weren’t, you know, one of…” he leaned over and whispered conspiratorially “them.”

“Them?” she asked him, dropping the broom to the floor. “Them who?”

“Why the aliens of course.” Milton said to her. “It’s okay, she’s human.” He said to no one in particular.

Maria spun around in time to see another alien display come to life as a doctor performing an alien autopsy removed his mask to reveal… “Larry?” she asked as the figure walked closer to stand beside Milton. It was Larry, one of the customers who witnessed Max healing Liz in the Crashdown the day she was shot. Maria hadn’t been able to tell when Larry was standing in the display, but his silver jumpsuit perfectly matched Milton’s, making the two of them look like some kind of space aged pod people. Maria turned to Milton “Okay Frohike. So who else have you got hiding around here anyway? Has Elvis left the building or is he hiding out in the Information Booth?”

Milton and Larry looked at each other and shook their heads in unison. “No, no no.” Milton replied as Larry finished his sentence. “Elvis was one of them.”

Maria looked from one to the other. “Right. Okay.” She said nodding. ‘Don’t taunt the freaks’ she thought to herself. “I’ll remember that one next time I run into him.” Maria spun on her heel and headed towards the door but Milton and Larry ran to intercept her, blocking her way.

“You don’t want to go out there.” Milton said, shaking his head.

“Oh no!” Larry agreed, nodding his. “You defiantly don’t want to do that.”

“And why not? Oh, yeah. Lemme guess.” Maria said to them and as she spoke the next word the other two joined in. “Aliens.”

“That’s right.” Milton said, pulling her away from the door. “They’re out there all right.”

Larry pushed her to a bench while Milton turned on the slide projector. “Mmm-hmmm. They’ll abduct you if you’re not careful. Suck you up.”

“That’s right, just suck you up.” Milton agreed, flipping the slides on his viewer as different scenes of alien abduction flickered across the projector screen.

Larry gestured wildly to the screen. “One minute you’ll be fine and then BAM, you’re on an alien spaceship”

“And then BAM they’re doing all sorts of stuff to you.” Milton continued as his UFO slides started flipping across the screen.

“And BAM no one believes you when you tell them cause the aliens have put a telepathic probe in your body which brainwashes everyone you come across into thinking you’re crazy.” Larry excitedly, smiling and nodding his head.

Maria raised her eyebrows at the pair of UFO fanatics and decided that the best thing to do was agree with them. “Sure, okay, but you see I HAVE to go out there. I am looking for someone.”

“Really? Who?” Milton asked her. “Not Elvis” he said worriedly.

“No, not Elvis.” She assured them.

“Well, if you must go, please be careful.” Larry said, placing a hand on her arm in a gesture of concern.

Milton nodded in agreement. “Yes, you must be careful. Because they’re out there you know. They can read your thoughts. They know what’s inside you. If you let them”

“I’ll be careful.” Maria told them, gently removing Larry’s hand from her arm. As she walked away from the two men she could hear them quietly bantering back and forth in the background.

… “They’re going to get her” … “Yup, she’s a goner” … “Too bad too… she seemed nice” … “They always get the nice ones”

Maria smiled as she walked out the door. But her smile faded as she saw someone across the street walking into the Crashdown Café’s front door.