Todd Save The Queen
A Short Story by Jonathan Brett
Published by Jonathan Brett at Smashwords
Copyright 2012 Jonathan Brett
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Todd’s back lawn was dark and empty on the warm June night that he decided to call his mother and give her the bad news. He sat on a creaking chair and looked at the empty table and the folded up umbrella. His cell phone sat on the glass table and he, not for the fiftieth time, rehearsed what he would say. The glass of ice tea sweated for him as he went through his speech one more time.
“Mom, I have bad news: I’m going to stop treatments,” he said. He rubbed his head and felt the smoothness of the scalp. He was sure that he was so pale that he glowed in the dark. The ache in his body curled around his bones and settled in like a lazy cat.
Todd reached for the phone and ended up grabbing the glass of iced tea. He took a sip and stood up.
“Maybe I’m crazy,” he said to the empty lawn. “Maybe give it another couple of months. Who knows?”
He knew, though. It was only a matter of time.
Suddenly, the dark lawn was illuminated by a bright light. The grass was thrown into relief and Todd’s eyes hurt to look at the brightness in the sky.
Todd dropped the glass and it shattered on the concrete of the patio. He stepped over the glass and it crunched under his sneakers. He picked up his cell phone and looked at it, but he couldn’t read the face, so he put it down.
“God?” Todd asked the light.
A loud, kind-of nasally voice filled the air: “Hello? Is this thing on?” There was a tapping sound. “Wait there, human! You’re needed for an important mission.”
“I’m on a mission…from God?” Todd asked. He blinked at the light. “And why do you sound like you’re talking through your nose?”
“Because my nose is flat,” the voice said. “Hold on, we have your coordinates.”
“Coordinates? Scotty’s in heaven?” Todd blinked. “And he got a job. Man, I suffer through cancer to get a job in heaven? What happened to eternal rest?”
Suddenly, the light got brighter and Todd had the not-all-that-uncommon feeling of his body being torn apart.
* * *
Todd woke up with another bright light in his face. Some indistinct shapes moved around outside his vision. He felt like he had just come out of another MRI.
“The human’s waking up!” said a voice.
“Should we make sure he came through the beam with his brain intact?”
“I think you conking him on the head when he materialized might have done more damage!”
“Well, I couldn’t figure out the stun setting on my gun and I didn’t want to vaporize him.”
Todd asked: “Is this heaven?”
“No, it’s a spaceship,” said the same nasally voice he had heard earlier.
The light shifted away and Todd still only saw a bright light in the middle of his vision. He sat up and touched his tee shirt and jeans. Somehow, he expected heaven to have more heavenly raiment.
“A spaceship?” Todd asked. He blinked away the light and it was now spots.
“Yes.”
Todd looked over and saw three little gray men with triangular heads and black eyes that blinked from the sides. One of them waved a three-fingered hand. He had a couple of extra stripes on his jumpsuit. He said, “I’m Tom. This is Dick and this is Harry.”
“Tom, Dick, and Harry,” Todd said. He rubbed his eyes. “Is this some kind of joke? If this is the support group’s idea, I don’t find it very supporting.”
“We need your help, human,” Dick said. He moved a holographic display with his small hands and came closer to the bed where Todd sat. “Do you confirm that you have a shaved head?”
“Uh, yeah,” Todd said.
“And you are an American?”
“Uh-huh,” Todd said.
“Great!” Dick said. “Hold still while I run a scan on you. The last human we abducted using the transference beam was materialized with his head on backwards. We fixed that, but it was an awkward couple of hours.”
“Human, exactly how many office buildings have you freed from terrorists?” Harry asked.
“What? None!”
“Can you accurately shoot two guns while flying through the air?” Harry asked.
“I’ve shot guns, but not while flying through the air.”
“What about causing not-flammable items to explode while shooting them and saying a witty one-liner?” Harry asked. He seemed to be reading off some sort of holographic list.
“Um, I think you meant to abduct Bruce Willis,” Todd said.
“So, you’ve never fought off terrorists while barefoot?” Tom asked.
“Uh, no,” Todd said. “I’m currently losing a battle against cancer and was about to quit my job, sell everything, and backpack across the United States until the cancer or some street bum with a switchblade finally gets me.”
The aliens said something in a rapid language. Tom rubbed his hands together and all of them occasionally glanced at Todd or the list in Harry’s hand. Finally, Tom said, “That’s it, we need to fire Doctor Gree’ka’la’balla’tola when we get back home.”
“Who’s Doctor Greek…uh…him? The guy you talked about a second ago?” Todd asked.
Tom sighed. “He’s our cultural advisor. He has a degree in human studies from the University of Bally-bally-Whoo-la. Our university system is woefully underfunded because we’re deciding that people are happier if they’re uneducated. The government finds them to be more easily distracted.”
“That’s what our government is up to, too,” Todd said.
“It’s the galactic recession,” Harry said with a shrug. “Bad fiscal policies. Our new president is an idiot, so he’s trying to make us all idiots, too, so he feels smarter. Doctor Gree’ka’la’balla’tola has so far been wrong on pretty much everything.”
“Like telling you that earth girls are easy,” Dick said.
“Yeah,” Todd said. “I really thought that they would go for a guy with cancer – at least a one-night stand because I could die tomorrow, you know? Nothing.”
“He managed to get a stalker,” Dick said, pointing a thumb at Tom.
“And then there was the whole thing about werewolves,” Harry said.
Tom rubbed his eyes. “Oh, that reminds me – Yama II has three moons. Any idea what that will do to Furball?”
The other two aliens shook their heads.
“Lock him in the bathroom again before we get there,” Tom said.
“What did this doctor say about me?” Todd asked.
“Just that any white American male with a shaved head is a one-man army,” Tom said. He shrugged and adjusted a dial on a holographic screen. It didn’t seem to do anything. “You were so white that we saw you from thirty thousand feet above your house. Once scans confirmed that you had a shaved head and we were in America, we thought we got lucky.”
“He must have watched a few Bruce Willis movies in his university days,” Todd said.
“We should take this human back and abduct this Bruce Willis guy,” Harry said.
“We’re already halfway to Yama II,” Tom said. “We can’t turn around now or they’ll execute her. You don’t want that – and you’re the one who got us into this mess in the first place!”
“Besides,” Dick interrupted, “you remember the last time we tried to abduct one of America’s movie stars?”
“Yeah, I got roundhouse kicked to the face,” Tom said. He rubbed his tiny chin. He glanced at Todd. “Never mind, you’re along for the ride, human.”
“Oh, and the scan’s complete!” Dick said. He pressed a couple of holographic buttons and they made important-sounding beeps. “It seems that the beam didn’t quite rematerialize you correctly. It left out a few odd growths that aren’t on the regular human template. It identified them as Cancer. Would you like that back, human?”
“No!” Todd shouted. He grabbed the holographic display and spun it around. Familiar with a million x-rays, Todd looked for the markers that he had been told over and over again was a curable kind of cancer if he just kept spending money and getting sicker and sicker. They were gone. He pointed to some readings. “Are these my vital signs?”
“Yes,” Dick said.
“Can you translate these to English?”
“Uh, yeah, here,” Dick said. He pressed a couple of buttons and the whole display switched from the alien language to English.
Todd read over the readings and compared them to the readings of the scan they took before they beamed him up. He typed in a couple of commands on the interface and the screen flashed: Cancer eradicated. No co-pay necessary.
“You cured my cancer!” Todd screamed. He pushed the screen away and grabbed Tom. He crushed him with a hug. “Thank you! Thank you! I’ll do anything to repay you.”
“The human’s hugging me! Help! What do we do?” Tom screamed.
“I can stun him!” Harry said, pulling out a pistol.
“That’s set to vaporize!” Dick said. “Hang on!”
The last thing Todd remembered was a blur of motion.
“I think blackjacks are more effective than stun rays anyway,” Dick said as Todd passed out.
* * *
Todd woke up and sat up on the bed.
“Sorry we hit you,” Tom said.
“Again,” Dick added.
“It’s okay,” Todd said. He rubbed his head. “I guess since you’re stuck with a substandard bald, white, American male, you might as well tell me why you abducted me.”
“The most beautiful woman in the universe has been kidnapped and we need an American to rescue her!” Harry said.
“He has a bit of a crush,” Dick explained.
“Who is she? One of your people?” Todd asked.
All three aliens looked at the floor. Tom said, “Actually, our females aren’t as attractive as more humanoid ones.”
“A little flat-chested,” Dick said.
“Men are apparently pond scum on any planet,” Todd mumbled.
“She’s the queen of a planet on the less-fashionable side of the galaxy,” Harry said. “But she’s still beautiful, and she was leading her people out of their dark ages and into the enlightened period.”
“As if our governmental system is more enlightened,” Dick said.
Todd got to his feet and staggered. “Who are we up against?”
“General Doz of the Ninth Breedonian Battle Fleet,” Tom said. “Their entire culture is so similar to American’s military industrial complex that our cultural advisor felt that we needed an American to fight them.”
“Hasn’t anyone tried to rescue her?” Todd asked.
“The democratic government of our part of the galaxy doesn’t get involved in local governmental affairs unless they have a resource that we want to exploit,” Tom said.
“Oil?”
“No, something rarer than that,” Harry said. “Maple syrup. All our ships run on it.”
“I thought I smelled pancakes,” Todd said.
“The Maple Wars of our history have been bloody and long,” Tom said.
“I’m waiting to hear that your government is about to annex Vermont,” Todd said.
“What?” Dick asked.
“Never mind,” Todd said. “What’s the plan?”
Tom told Todd the plan, which involved a prison break, lots of running and screaming, and Todd jumping through the air while firing two guns.
“We’re screwed, aren’t we, human?” Harry asked.
“Yeah,” Todd said. “Pretty much. But before you, I was screwed in a couple of months anyway. I might as well go out in a blaze of glory.”
* * *
In orbit around Yama II with a cloaking device activated (it was, apparently, a button that disguised the ship as the intergalactic equivalent of a road construction truck whose crew was on lunch break), Tom took Todd to the command center of the ship, which looked like a big living room with lots of televisions, chairs, and a bar. On the main television, in full surround sound, played the latest Transformers movie. On a smaller television, General Doz spoke to the galactic audience.
Doz was not a benign and slightly-goofy-looking alien like Tom, Dick, and Harry, or their crew, who sat on a couch and ate popcorn while giant Hollywood robots battle for the fate of Chicago. Instead, the general looked like a crocodile got drunk and knocked up a wart hog. He also seemed to be much bigger than the aliens with Todd, who were all about five-feet tall.
“Ladies, gentlemen, and miscellaneously-gendered species,” the general said. “Today is a great day for the Ninth Breedonian Battle Fleet.” A muscled, green arm pointed off-camera. “This upstart, who has refused our perfectly-legal order at gunpoint to pay a respect tax, will be executed by being fed to a grandmotherly snad beetle.”
“That doesn’t sound bad,” Todd said.
Dick said, “In Breedonian, grandmotherly means big, ugly, with sharp, pointy teeth.”
“Oh,” Todd said. “We might have said ex-girlfriendly on Earth.”
The general continued: “Unless, of course, she decides to sneal to our authority.”
“I assume snealing is bad,” Todd said.
“Very bad,” Harry said. “Almost as bad as being fed to a grandmotherly snad beetle.”
“So,” Doz said, “let’s see what she decides. Will you sneel, Queen Hot-Tay?”
Todd gasped and looked over at the aliens. He asked, “Did he just say hottie?”
“Hot-Tay,” Harry said. “In her language, it means Woman-Of-Wisdom.”
“In our language, it means Woman-With-More-Looks-Than-Brains,” Todd said.
“That’s why President Booh-tea-kawl doesn’t visit Earth much,” Tom said. “Translating names is such a difficult thing across galactic lines.”
The camera panned over and revealed the queen. She angrily blew a blond strand of hair out her face.
“What a hottie!” Todd said.
“Hot-Tay,” Harry corrected. His eyes halved.
Yes, she was certainly a hottie. Impossibly, the universe apparently repeated the design of humans on her planet and then put together the exact woman that had graced an old copy of The Princess of Mars that Todd had read as a teenager.
“What’s her planet’s primary export?” Todd asked.
“Multi-species-adaptable gym equipment,” Tom said. “Why?”
“It looks like she uses it,” Todd said. “Do her people always walk around in titanium swimsuits?”
“If your whole culture was built around fitness and making the rest of the universe want to buy your equipment, wouldn’t you?” Harry asked.
Todd shrugged.
“Go gnaff yourself,” the queen said to Doz.
“Such language!” the general said as the camera panned back to him. “So if she refuses to sneal, then she must die. Tune in around seven Breedonian Standard Time, ladies and gentlemen…and whatevers.”
The image of Doz faded to a picture of what appeared to be some sort of air freshener and the text: This execution is sponsored by G’lex Air Freshener. Why let your grandmotherly snad beetle pit smell like rotting meat?
“How long do we have?” Todd asked.
Harry looked at a bank of typical-looking analog clocks on the wall. “It’s four in Breedonian Standard Time now.”
“Looks like I better practice my use of your ray guns,” Todd said.
* * *
Using another setting to the cloaking device (making the ship look like it was driven by the intergalactic equivalent of the Geek Squad), Tom, Dick, Harry, and Todd slipped passed the defenses of the Ninth Breedonian Battle Fleet and landed on Yama II, about two blocks from the Pan-Galactic Exports Detention and Execution Center and Office Complex. The Yamans were, according to Doctor Gree’ka’la’balla’tola, the galaxy’s foremost authority on making money on things. They had even found a way to make money off poverty, which Todd was pretty sure that America’s biggest corporations had also discovered.
The city was so much like New York that Todd had to remind himself repeatedly that he was on an alien planet and breathing air courtesy of a shot that Dick had given him before they beamed down. Alien cars were stuck in alien traffic, alien smog choked alien lungs, and billboards advertised things from soda to new movies. In fact, as Todd discovered, the alien hot-dog vendors sold alien hot-dogs (that tasted like chicken).
“Are you done eating?” Harry snapped.
Todd wiped away some alien mustard and said, “Old rule of mine: never rescue a smoking hot alien queen on an empty stomach.”
“If anyone tries to pick up Queen Hot-Tay, it’ll be me!” Harry said, jabbing a finger into Todd’s stomach.
“If you had a shot, you wouldn’t have abducted a cancer-riddled human to help you,” Todd said.
“And we cured that cancer,” Harry said.
“Accidentally,” Dick said. “Technically, the human doesn’t owe us anything.”
There were so many different types of aliens wandering around the city that no one noticed Todd or the three aliens walking with him. Beneath their coats, each was decked out like Neo in The Matrix.
When they got to the detention and execution center, an angry Breedonian crew looked for weapons. They had an old-looking lady alien off to the side and were patting her down like they worked for the TSA. One of the Breedonians grunted, “Sorry, ma’am, but we have to randomly check everyone. No profiling.” He then pulled on a latex-looking glove and said, “You’ll have to bend over…”
“How are we going to get through this security?” Tom asked.
“You don’t have a plan for this?” Todd asked.
“Can’t you just jump through the air and shoot them?” Harry asked.
“Hang on,” Todd said. “What ethnic group are they profiling against but pretending they’re not profiling against?”
“Green Sazmarians,” Tom said. “One percent of them are a dangerous group of eco-terrorists. The rest are a nice, peaceful people who think the eco-terrorists give them all a bad name.”
“Uh-huh,” Todd said. “See that briefcase over there? Grab it!”
Quickly, Dick snagged a silver briefcase from the conveyor belt. He handed it to Todd.
“Now are Green Sazmarians actually green?” Todd asked.
“Yep,” Tom said. “They’re not like Yellow Habakians who are purplish.”
Todd looked around and spotted a nervous-looking green man in the line behind them.
“I am such a horrible human being for doing this,” Todd said. He tossed the briefcase to the green man. The startled Sazmarian caught the briefcase and squeaked some sort of curse.
Todd jumped back and screamed: “Help! That Green Sazmarian has a bomb! He just yelled that all this pollution is killing Mother Yama!”
“Everybody clear out!” one of the Breedonaians shouted. The one with the glove pulled his hand free with the sound of a cork being removed and jumped over the counter.
“Let’s go,” Todd said as the Breedonians chased after the green man, “and don’t touch that counter.”
A moment later, they were inside the detention center and using Dick’s scanner to find their way to the queen’s cell.
“So this little excursion isn’t sanctioned by your government?” Todd asked as they dodged passed a couple of guards.
“Nope,” Tom said. “We’re just bored.”
“Next time you want to do something this crazy, abduct me again, okay?” Todd said.
“Excited?”
“It’s like playing a video game, but I can die for real. You know the funny thing? I’m not afraid of dying anymore.”
“You’re not?”
“Now snealing…” Todd said.
“This is it,” Dick interrupted. They came to a great big metal door in the middle of the complex that had several words scrolling across its holographic screen. Dick handed his scanner over to Todd so Todd could read the writing through the holographic translator display.
Top Secret Prisoner Kept Inside. Go away!
Todd handed it back. “Any ideas on how we’ll get inside.”
“Already on it,” Tom said. He shooed them away from the door. “This trick always works.”
Tom knocked on the door.
“Hello?” said a gruff voice through a speaker.
“Did anyone in here order a pizza? I have a triple-glat-cheese pizza with dekron fish and pepperoni.”
There was a pause.
“No. Go away.”
“Really? I’m pretty sure my communicator said the Main Detention Cell in the Pan-Galactic Sports Detention and Execution Center and Exercise Complex.”
“This is the Pan-Galactic Exports Detention and Execution Center and Office Complex,” the voice said. “The Pan-Galactic Sports Detention and Execution Center and Exercise Complex is on the other side of town!”
“Oh, great,” Tom said. “Hey, look, do you want the pizza? It’ll be cold by the time I get there, so I’ll have to get another one made anyway.”
There was a pause. Harry whispered, “Get ready!”
“Fine,” the voice said. The door hissed and opened.
Todd pulled out both of his guns, closed his eyes, and screamed. He dove through the opening door and began pulling the triggers.
When he opened his eyes, five Breedonians lay on the ground with sizzling burns on their chests.
“Wow! That worked!” Todd gasped.
“I activated the auto-targeting function on the guns before we left,” Harry said as he peeked his head in the door. “Just in case.”
“Harry’s a lousy shot,” Dick said.
“Yeah, says the guy who can’t tranquilize Big Foot,” Harry mumbled.
“Don’t just stand there, get me out!” snapped a voice from the corner.
The queen leaned against the bars in the corner, both well-muscled and nicely tanned arms reached out toward them. Her chest heaved and she switched her weight from one shapely leg to the other. Blond hair spilled down from her head and her violet eyes had a fire in them.
“Wow!” Todd said.
“You’re gawking, human,” Tom said.
“So’s Harry,” Todd said. He walked over to the cell and looked at the lock. “Well, your highness, as soon as we figure out this locking mechanism…oh, hell, step back.”
She obeyed. Todd dialed up the setting on his gun and blasted the lock. It vaporized and the door swung open.
The queen stepped through the smoke in slow-motion. Her eyes looked Todd up and down for a moment and her tongue slipped across her red lips.
“Where are you from, Stranger?”
“Earth,” Todd said. He struck his best action hero pose.
“And is this your crew?”
“The best team I could assemble to rescue you, ma’am,” Todd said.
She was very close now. Her finger trailed along Todd’s chest. “Really? Looks like you’re capable of…rescuing me all on your own.”
“He’s flirting with her!” Harry said.
“Like you really had a chance,” Tom said. “Look, human, before all the blood runs out of your brain, we need to get out of here.”
“Right,” Todd said. “General Doz might have noticed the break-out by now.”
“You have a ship?” Hot-Tay asked.
“Yes,” Harry said. “It’s in Orbital Parking Garage Seventy-Two-B.”
“It’s Seventy-Two-C!” Dick said.
“No, I’m sure it’s B.”
“Look, I told you to remember where we parked,” Tom said. “We’re going to be running from killer Breedonians and we can’t remember where we parked.”
“It was Seventy-Two-C,” Todd said. “Come on.”
“Give me a gun,” the queen said. Todd handed one over.
They all approached the door and Todd leaned against the frame.
“What do we do now, human?” Tom asked.
“Well, if this was a video game, I would peek around the door and see if there’s anyone out there.”
“But?”
“I don’t want to get shot in the forehead.”
“We need to know if someone’s out there,” Harry said.
Todd took a deep breath. He then quickly peeked around the door and pulled back in as a hail of laser bolts battered the wall.
“There are people out there,” Todd said.
“Good thing Breedonians don’t believe in using auto-targeting,” Dick said.
“What’s your plan for getting us out of here?” the queen asked.
“You could distract them by removing your top,” Todd suggested.
“Breedonian males find mammalian features repulsive,” the queen said.
“Yeah, well, it would have helped me to die happy,” Todd said.
“Me, too,” the aliens said at the same time.
“Queen Hot-Tay!” Doz’s voice yelled. “Surrender and we’ll kill you.”
“Don’t you mean or?” Todd shouted back.
There was a pause. Finally, Doz said, “No, no, I meant and. I’m pretty sure…yeah! Yeah, I meant and. Surrender and we’ll kill you all.”
“Over our dead bodies, General!” Harry shouted.
“That’s the idea, moron,” Tom said.
“Do you have any grenades?” Todd asked.
Suddenly a round, spiky object bounced into the room.
“What’s that?” Todd asked.
“A grenade,” Hot-Tay said.
“How convenient,” Todd said. He bent down, scooped it up, and tossed it back out at the general and his men.
There were several shouts of what Todd assumed was swearing, followed by something that was definitely a boom.
“That’s it, people,” Todd said. “Nobody lives forever.”
Todd turned and opened fire. The queen dropped to one knee to his left, wrapped a hand around his leg, and joined in on the violence. The three aliens screamed and jumped through the air, shooting as they flew.
Thankfully, everyone was using the auto-targeting function of their guns. Breedonians writhed and died in slow motion as General Doz ran toward them, snarling and foaming at the mouth.
The queen let go of Todd’s leg and rolled to the wall. She shot a couple of Breedonians who were trying to slip in under the sizzling bolts of their guns.
Doz continued to run, spittle hanging in the air where he had been a step or two before.
Doz hit the three aliens like a bowling ball, tossing them all into the air like the intergalactic equivalent of rag dolls. He then barreled into Todd and knocked him backwards into the detention cell. A scaly, clawed hand clamped around Todd’s throat and Todd was lifted from the ground to be held in the air. He grabbed ahold of the arm and smelled Doz’s breath as the toothy alien snorted in triumph.
“Well fought, warrior!” Doz said. He pulled Todd closer. “You were a worthy opponent, but you forgot one thing.”
“What’s that?” Todd gasped.
“The auto-targeting function has a glitch!” Doz said. “If someone is crazy enough to charge the one shooting, the gun assumes that the person doing the shooting should be able to hit the crazy person without help, so it refuses to auto-target the runner.”
“Must have missed that in the owner’s manual,” Todd said.
“Now,” Doz said as his grip tightened, “sneal. Sneal before Doz!”
Todd blinked. He then found himself laughing.
Doz blinked. “What? What is this laughter? I said sneal! This isn’t snealing!”
The whine of a charging gun made Todd open his eyes.
“Sneal this, you mother-gnaffer!” Hot-Tay said.
Todd turned his head away from the death of Doz. The scaly hand let go and he fell to the ground. He heard a heavy thud as he shook away the stars.
A strong hand grabbed the back of his bald head and pulled his face forward. Todd opened his eyes for a second to find himself in a passionate and powerful kiss.
When she was done, Queen Hot-Tay picked Todd up and said to Tom, Dick, and Harry, “Let’s get to your ship!”
“Yes, ma’am!” Tom said.
“You can put me down now,” Todd said as they ran through the corridors. His weight didn’t seem to bother her much.
“When we get to their ship…” Hot-Tay began.
“I don’t want to hear it!” Harry yelled.
Hot-Tay put Todd on his feet and they rounded a corner. A Breedonian with a hand in a latex glove stood there with a gun in his other hand.
“That was no terrorist,” he growled.
“Give it up,” Todd said. “The general’s dead.”
The alien blinked. He then pointed the gun at them. “Great, now I’m unemployed!”
“Doesn’t someone else take over?” Todd asked. “There has to be a major or a colonel or something, right?”
Dick cleared his throat. “General’s kind of an honorary title in the Breedonian culture. The lawyers will have to figure out who gets control of the Ninth Breedonian Battle Fleet, and that could take months. This poor guy’s going to be waiting tables to pay the bills.”
“Nothing wrong with that,” Todd said. “I did that for a few years in college. You get to meet some really neat people – and you don’t have to stick your hand up anyone’s backside!”
The Breedonian looked at his gloved hand and sighed. He holstered his gun. “Yeah, my job did suck, didn’t it? But with the recession and all, I was happy just to have a job. Oh, well. Get out of here.”
“Now let’s just hope the human’s right about the parking garage,” Harry said as they ran to the beam-up site.
* * *
Tired, sore, and with a couple of claw marks on his back, Todd landed hard on his patio because Harry “accidentally” targeted the beam a couple of feet above the concrete.
His cell phone was still on the glass table, waiting in the daylight of a brand new day.
Todd quickly called his mother.
“Mom?” Todd asked. “Good news: I’m quitting cancer treatments! No, no, the bad news is that I’m going to be moving away, but I’m sure I can visit once a month or so, but I’m not how intergalactic travel works. Yes, I said intergalactic. No, I’m not crazy. Look, next week, you’ll come with us to her home planet to meet her people. People, not parents. She’s a…oh, never mind, I’ll explain when we’re in orbit, okay?”
Todd hung up and smiled at the sun hanging over his empty lawn.