The Aliens Come A Knocking

Summer 2006

Western Massachusetts

Residence of Jenna and Charlotte Hall

The static cleared and the images came to life on the television in Charlotte’s home. It showed a happy family playing outside. Two moms and their son. The tape showed a happy summer day, the same kind of VHS tapes every good old American family had. But Charlotte wasn’t buying it. She was playing this tape repeatedly, trying to show her wife what was wrong with the video she took.

“Honey, I really don’t know why you keep replaying this tape.” Her wife, Jenna, said as Charlotte set the tape to replay for the 3rd time.

“Just please, trust me Jen, I know what I caught on tape.”

“Okay, I will humor you, but even if you did see a UFO, there’s no reason for you to be getting stressed out like this. You’ll wear out the tape before Jackson gets to see it, I want him to have happy memories of his childhood. We didn’t get that with the limited tech we had, remember?”

“I understand but it was a bonafide flying saucer and it was high definition, but it gets blurrier on

every replay I don’t know why, just trust me.”

Jenna sighed. Her wife could be immensely stubborn about things. Like when she swore the

bump on Jackson’s neck was an allergic reaction to laundry detergent. She was right but that was

laundry detergent, and this was aliens.

The camera that Jenna had bought for Charlotte for Christmas last year was top notch. It wasn’t the kind of camera that made Charlotte into anymore of the top-notch camerawoman she already was with the local new affiliate in their small Massachusetts town, but the kind of camera that could capture every milestone in their lives from now till whenever the camera couldn’t function anymore. A small little device that could make a video scrapbook of their lives.

The video had Jenna lifting their giggling son Jackson into the air. Jenna’s heart instantly warmed watching herself play with her son. It was her first day off from the flower shop in weeks. The first time when she had more than enough energy to play with their bubbly toddler. She was lost in the joy of seeing her perfect family on tape, she didn’t even notice Charlotte pausing the tape and pointing at the screen.

“Do you see it now, it’s finally in high definition again.” Charlotte said, sweat beginning to form at her brow. “Jenna, please look at it, I promise I’m not crazy.”

Jenna turned to her wife and said “Charlotte, I know that you think you saw something but there is no need for something like this to be stressing you out so much. A UFO sighting is great but its not like you can prov-oh my god.”

Jenna stood up and walked towards the television. She leaned down and looked at it, clear as day.

It was a flying saucer.

It was just like the ones the science fiction films have been imagining forever, a circular ship in the sky with green lights coming out of it. Even with the sunlight of their park day, you can see the green lights. Charlotte presses play and the ship spins before darting off in the other direction.

“Charlotte…what do we do?”

“What do you mean what do we do? We have the clearest video of a UFO in human history.”

Jenna looked up at her wife, whose face went from stressed to smiling widely. She was glad her wife was so happy but her wife was not seeing the same downsides.

“Who’s going to believe it, you know those movies make it look so real. They’ll think we did the same.”

“They can test our tape for that. Do you realize what this could mean, we’ll be known from Vancouver to Berlin. We are gonna become household names! We can make sure Jackson is set for college and we can do whatever we want, because they’ll pay for this!"

Jenna put her arms together and went back to the couch to sit. Her mind was racing a mile a

minute and they weren’t positive thoughts. They were mainly full of fear.

“Jenna…are you worried about like the CIA or Men in Black or something? Because I have thought that out. I’m going to talk to the folks at the station and they’ll show it first. Once all the other affiliates pick it up, the news will travel fast and they can’t shut us up.”

Jenna shakes her head.

“No? Jenna what’s wrong? This should be monumental.”

“Put the tape away Charlotte.”

“What? No. Do you hear me. We will be worldwide sensations.”

“Put it in the case, and we can talk about it later.”

“No, Jenna, you’re not listening.”

“No, you’re not listening to me. You really want to do that? You want the whole world on our doorstep? You want Jackson to have all that attention on him, he’s in the video. If they believe us, if they don’t believe us, I don’t want anymore God damned attention on this family!”

If there was one thing Jenna hated about her life it was the town’s eyes on her. Sure, Massachusetts is liberal and got gay marriage before all the other states. But it wasn’t some rainbow safe haven either. They all thought she didn’t notice when they shook their heads at the couple and their son at the grocery store, the hushed whispers that Charlotte’s coworkers made when she brought her wife lunch, and the scratching sound of nail on table that Jenna’s sister, the co owner of their family’s flower shop, made as she tried to find a reason why she couldn’t come over to Jenna and Charlotte’s home every time Jenna asked.

Charlotte inhaled and walked over to her wife, sitting down and taking her wife’s hand, which was shaking, in her hand. “I know you’re scared.”

“Scared? I’m terrified, I can’t think straight, and I’m amazed at the fact we made the biggest discovery since the Polio vaccine. Can we sleep on this?” Jenna asked.

“Of course, sweetheart, let’s just think it over and talk about it in the morning.” Charlotte said and gave her wife a peck on the head.

“Okay.” Jenna said and stood up.

“You think Jackson’s asleep?” Charlotte asked.

Jenna chuckled, “He better be, if I have to read The Hungry Hungry Caterpillar to that boy one more time, I might-"

KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK

The couple froze.

“Was that the door?” Jenna asked.

Charlotte cleared her throat and said, “I think so, but it’s 9:30 PM, who’s knocking at 9:30 PM?”

The reasonable answers of Jehovah’s Witness, salesman, delivery man, and their Republican neighbor angry about the Deval Patrick for Governor sign in their yard were thrown out of Jenna’s mind quickly.

“You think it’s the cops or something. God forbid but maybe something happened to your sister?” Charlotte asked.

“No, they have to declare themselves if they’re cops right?”

KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK

“Do you think it’s about the tape?” Charlotte asked.

KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK

Jenna didn’t say anything and tiptoed to the door. Her breath began to get very very shaky. She turned and looked at Charlotte, who remained glued to the couch, frozen. Charlotte nodded at Jenna. She closed her eyes and reached out, fumbling with the doorknob, and slowly creaked it open.

The thing stood at around 5’5. Its skin was light gray. It wore a spacesuit not far off from the kind human ones wore. Its head was massive, and its eyes were pitch black. It had elongated yellow teeth, which were etched into a wide smile.

“Hello!”

Jenna screamed a loud piercing yet quick scream and her hand shot out and socked the alien right in the eye and then slammed the door shut.

“Ow!” she heard from the other side, followed by a thump.

Jenna sprinted to the couch and hid behind the arm. “Charlotte, go get Jackson and hide in the basement.”

“YOU PUNCHED ME IN THE EYEBALL. THAT WAS NOT OKAY!” She heard from the other side of the door.

“Oh my god, she hit you!” a different voice, one full of concern, said from outside the home.

“I told you we should have been more forceful. Humans are dicks!” A gruffier voice piped in.

Jenna and Charlotte exchanged a look. Jenna knew for a fact what she saw wasn’t human but it and whatever else is out there with it could speak English.

The second voice said, “Look Mrs. and Mrs. Hall, we just want to communicate efficiently with you about the video home system tape you have of our research vessel.”

Charlotte steadied her breath and grasped Jenna’s hand. “Babe, I have an idea.”

This did not subside Jenna’s panic, in fact it probably worsened it. It was Charlotte’s grand idea to take the video to her coworkers after all.

“You go get Jackson and I will talk to them. I can distract them. You get him out of here, go to your sister’s.” Charlotte whispered.

“We are not going to hurt you. We just wish to communicate about the tape. No need to be alarmed. We definitely do not have any weapons.” The same voice from outside said.

Charlotte motioned for Jenna to go up the stairs to Jackson’s room.

Jenna crawled army style over the staircase as Charlotte shouted “Who are you?! And it definitely sounds like you have weapons!”

“No, no, we promise, Look, Mrs.Hall, if you just let us come into your living residence, we can harmoniously discuss the relocation of the tape.”

Jenna stood and bolted up the staircase, going two steps at a time. Her mind was only preoccupied with one thing, grabbing Jackson and getting out of there.

She was so preoccupied that it took her a moment to process the figure at the top of the stairs and how it looked identical to the creature outside. It took her a moment to process the rifle shaped device in its hands and how it was pointed directly at her with a blue light coming from it.

“Fuck!” She shouted and jumped back and as she did it, the light came out of its gun got brighter and brighter and she expected the next thing would be eternal darkness. She gave a split-second prayer to whatever possibly could be out there to protect Charlotte and Jackson.

But the dark never came, only her own weight onto her eyelids. She slowly opened her eyes up and saw a blue aura around her with a buzzing noise around it. She looked up and her own ceiling was very close to her nose. She snapped her head down and saw that she was floating two feet off of the ground.

She screamed loudly and tried to move out of the aura.

“Ma’am, please remain calm, this flotation stick is new.” The thing at the top of the stairs said. It looked to be struggling with the device.

“Okay, we are going to move down your building planks slowly. I need you to not struggle.”

“Put me down you alien motherfucker.”

“Please ignore your species’ primitive instincts to be insulting, I think it’s not going to help either of us.”

It took a step down as if it was scared. It walked down the stairs hesitantly.

“Are you okay Scax?” A voice, the gruffier of the ones from outside, asked.

“Yes Spode, I’m fine. The mean primitive primates have advanced building planks.”

“Really?”

“I know right!”

They finally got to the end of the staircase and Jenna snapped her head to the right and saw that three of the creatures were in the room. All were the same size and appearance. Except one had its hand over its eye. Charlotte was seated on the couch. Her expression was stressed.

The creature moved Jenna over above the couch and the aura dissipated. Jenna yelped as she fell quickly onto the soft surface. The alien moved over to join the other three.

One stepped forward, presumably the one who negotiated with Charlotte,

“Well, hello mean primitive primates without hair, first thing is first, we know we sound weird we are just trying to get acclimated to your stupid jumbled primate language.”

The human couple exchanged a look of confusion.

“My name is Phigogh, this is Scax, Spode, and Koli. By the way, Koli’s going to be fine after you violently assaulted him.”

The alien with his hand over his eye, Koli, said “Well yes, but that still hurt.”

Phigogh put his hand on Koli’s shoulder and said “You’ll be fine, let us tell them our purpose for being in their living residence. You know these primates grow very aggressive if they do not get their wants met immediately.”

Koli sighed and raised his other hand in defeat. It became strikingly clear to Jenna that Phigogh was the leader of this group. She grasped Charlotte’s hand in anticipation of whatever this alien was going to say next.

“Okay so the four of us are from the planet of Taxoz, it is in your galaxy on the outer reaches. We are what your people commonly refer to as ‘grad students’. For the past several of your human weeks, four months in our time, we have been conducting our studies on the species of Earth. We may have taken a few of your animals on Earth but I can confirm it is just for science.”

Charlotte spoke up “Is that what you’re here, you’re gonna abduct us and experiment on us for your fucking master’s degree or whatever?” She half shouted the last part.

“No ma’am, we don’t do masters degrees, and we do not experiment on humans. Your species is, as we said before, useless and cruel and nonsensical. We only take one of each species we need and we take the good species. The cows, bears, tigers, kangaroos, sasquatches, sharks, pythons, and things of that nature. One of our professors accidentally abducted a human many decades ago but it was messy business. If you are concerned about that, we can assure you that is not the case. Your species is awful, and we would rather not associate with you.” Phigogh concluded this with a smile.

Jenna began to experience every emotion at once. Fear, confusion, curiosity. The alien who had lifted her into the sky, Scax, put his hand with elongated fingers onto Phigogh’s shoulder.

“Phigogh, maybe we should explain what we need from them. I also think we may be insulting them.” He then whispered, “You know these humans do not react well to criticism.”

Phigogh nodded and patted Scax’s hand with a smile. “Well, I think you have a point there Scax. Mrs. and Mrs. Hall, your electronic photo machine captured video of our ship and that was turned it into a video home system tape, we detected electric material being honed on our ship and tracked it with this.”

Phigogh pulled a device out from his waist that looked like a pistol. Jenna and Charlotte tensed up at the sight of it. The alien chuckled at their tense expression.

“Yes, I understand it is frightening, but it just tracks electromagnetic pulse. Oh, it also pours out pleasant beverages.” Phigogh turned on a button and blue liquid began to come out under it. It looked like pop but more bubbly and it was getting all over their carpet, something that irked Jenna despite the more terrifying implications of this event.

“Phigogh, onto the point.” Spode said, clearly a little annoyed. Since their eyes were pitch black, Jenna wasn’t entirely sure but she could read it in his voice.

“Oh, yes. We need that tape. While your species is rather primitive, you have discovered mild space travel, still in the beginning phases, but it’s a step. If your emperors and presidents found out our existence. We fear they will come after us. Abduct us while we just want to study your planet. We are a peaceful and academic species. We do not have the resources for war.” Phigogh’s cheerful demeanor dropped on this statement.

Jenna and Charlotte were stunned into silence by this. All four aliens, with all their distinct personalities, looked worried. They were scared.

When Jenna came out to her parents, she was a senior in college in 1997, Ellen had come out and it inspired Jenna. In something out of romcom, she had met Charlotte that year. An art major who worked at a family flower shop and a TV production major, a match made in sapphic heaven. The two’s relationship had blossomed into something far exceeding a college fling. Jenna thought she would never tell her parents how she felt, but meeting Charlotte changed that. The minutes before she told them that her “post college roommate” wasn’t just a roommate, she looked into the mirror in her bathroom in an attempt to calm herself down and saw her own scared reflection. She worried for herself, for Charlotte, for her family. She stared into the mirror, letting those fears echo in her brain. She did the same when she told them that she and Charlotte were buying a home together, when she told them they were going to adopt a son from the orphanage in Boston, when she told them that she and Charlotte were going to get married once the licenses were issued in 2004. Even though her family was gradually adjusting to the reality of Jenna’s life despite their own discomfort, she felt this intense fear whenever she told them of a new milestone. She’d grown to fear the retaliation of the confused and angry, even if they seemed trustworthy.

Jenna felt for the four aliens, they were young and didn’t expect to have to ever cross paths with a species that could hurt them. They just wanted to do their zoology and whatever and live their lives in harmony.

“Phigogh,” Jenna spoke up, “You don’t have to be afraid of us. A lot of humans are not evil we just are scared, I guess. We understand your fear and we will never share it. But it’s a video of our son, if you could let us keep it for that. We would appreciate it.”

Phigogh considered but shook his head. “Your desire to have the electronic moving photos of your offspring is understandable, but we can’t take that chance. We have families of our own, happiness providers that we care about.”

Scax reached out and grasped Phigogh’s hand, apparently signaling that happiness provider meant something close to lover in their way of speaking.

“We will never return to your living residence after tonight, we will complete our studies, and leave Earth forever, we promise. We just can’t risk anymore danger to our planet. Can you do that for us?” Phigogh asked.

Charlotte looked at Jenna, her eyes read that her mind was made up but she sought Jenna’s approval. Jenna bit her lip and gave one hard blink before saying. “Give them the tape, Charlotte.”

Charlotte went over to the VHS player and pressed eject. The tape came out slowly and Charlotte snatched it up and gave it to Spode. Spode looked at it and crushed it with one massive squeeze of his hand, startling everyone in the room.

“Hahah! I crush video home system tape, I am most efficient life form, losers!”

“You imbecile! We were going to dissolve it!” Koli shouted at him.

“Bah! This is fine, now let’s get out of here, we have to get the report on sasquatches done soon.” Scode chuckled and made his way to the door.

Scax followed, shaking his head in abject disappointment at his colleague.

Jenna stood and made her way over to Charlotte, hugging her arm tightly as relief showered over her. Phigogh approached them and held his hand out to the two.

“Thank you, Mrs and Mrs. Hall. We will now get into our ship, which has been cloaked in your front grass domicile for several minutes now, and be on our way. Enjoy your lives.” Phigogh turned and walked out of the house.

Koli, his hand gone from his eye, followed him but Jenna called out, “Uh, Koli, right?”

Koli turned and exclaimed “Please do not hit me again, I will hit back.”

“No, no, I’m just…I’m sorry I hit you earlier. I was just taken aback, that’s all.”

Koli nodded and said “That’s okay. I guess I understand your species more. Despite all the violent things your species does without proper reasoning, defending your family…it is kind of nice actually. Maybe you mean hairless primates aren’t as bad as we thought. I’ll include that in my report.” He turned and walked out into the yard.

The human couple walked slowly to their door and saw Koli climb up a ladder into a mostly invisible ship. The ship rumbled ever so slightly and shot off from their yard into the sky. The Deval Patrick sign in their yard flew out of the ground and onto a bush.

“I’ll get that in the morning, I need some sleep.” Charlotte grumbled and closed the door to their home and began to shuffler her way to the stairs.

“Hey Char, did you let them in because they seemed trustworthy?” Jenna asked.

Charlotte stopped and turned around.

“Honestly Jen, yeah. I guess I kinda sensed that they weren’t going to hurt us. Is that why you empathized with them at the end there?”

Jenna let out a heavy exhale, her heart rate was finally returning to normal. “Yes, I did.”

Charlotte reached out her arm to her wife and Jenna walked over and took it in hers. Their elbows tightly wrapped around each other as they began their ascent up the stairs.

“So, say we right a sci fi novella about friendly aliens…”

“No, Charlotte, No.”

“Okay, maybe a screenplay, you said X Files needed some gay representation.”

“Bedtime, sweet pea, bedtime.”

“Okay fine, I love you my alien whisperer.”

“Charlotte, I will pay you to never call me that again. But I love you too.”

The two walked into their room, satisfied that their discovery would go unrecognized for the good of each other, the good of the universe, and of the four aliens that came knocking at their

door.

Jarrett Connolly is a student at Christopher Newport University in Newport News, Virginia, with intention to graduate in spring of 2024 with a degree in Communication Studies. When he isn't writing stories or researching for his degree, he's spending time with his family, friends, and loving partner, reading, yelling about professional wrestling, and helping writers on his campus connect and share their ideas. You can find him on Instagram @Jarrett.Connolly

Copyright © 2024 by Jarrett Connolly

Published by Orion's Beau