PROLOGUE
Mona
believed in two things: aliens and good customer service.
Not
everyone who came to the Jitterbug for a fresh pot of coffee was entirely of this world.
Well, that's what her ex-manager, and ex-fiancé, told her before he got—most likely—abducted
and she got his job. Which meant Mona was next in line for a wondrous
interplanetary adventure, if she held out long enough and treated her possibly
alien patrons right.
The thought kept her going when life became incomprehensible and stress tried to drown out her thoughts. Maybe, just maybe, one of her customers was from outer space, and she was damn sure she was going to smile and treat every single one of them with respect just in case. It was why she opened the coffee shop every night of the year, including Christmas and New Year’s Eve. Her travel bag was packed and stashed in the café's back room waiting to go, though it was just gathering dust at the moment.
While waiting for the aliens, Mona focused on the customer experience part of the deal. She perfected her pies. Made the Jitterbug a safe haven for those who felt lost or like an outcast in the world. Like flocked to like, and she built a community. And some, like her, were longing for the stars.
Most of her regulars fit easily under the label of “possibly alien, keep an eye out for them.” Take, for instance, Sally Webber: so normal it hurt, yet surrounded by the oddest people on all sides, like the gorgeous androgynous beauty and the potential Woman in Black who came in on New Year’s Eve. Or the fact that she disappeared the day the spaceship broke the atmosphere, but nobody noticed since there was a freaking spaceship in the sky. Nobody but Mona, anyway. That night, she had stood on the roof with her dusted-off satchel and Christmas lights spelling out “take me with you” at her feet, as her staff and customers hid in the café with paper bags over their heads. It was during that stupidly long wait that she realized Sally wasn’t with them.
When the news hit that it was a bona fide hoax, the whole world let out a collective sigh of relief. Mona closed the café for the first time since taking over as manager, cried into her pillow for a good twelve hours, and then opened the Jitterbug the next day, putting the satchel back in its rightful place by the emergency exit.
A week after the biggest disappointment in Mona’s life, Sally waltzed back in.
Though it wasn't the same Sally she had seen before the hoax. The first clue was that she was wearing a t-shirt in negative-degree weather. That, and Mona had never noticed how buff the girl was—her arms were straight out of a Hollywood movie, all muscled and skin practically glowing. Her hair shone with the light of a thousand suns, which only highlighted her bright smile.
“Oh my god,” said Mona, her jaw dropping as she took her in. “It’s you.”
The smile widened. Mona fell in love instantly.
“What?” Sally laughed, her voice light, birds landing on her arms as she spoke. At least, that’s what happened in the version Mona wrote down later when she got home and tried to make sense of the whole afternoon. “I've only been gone a week. Well, it's been an exciting week, for sure, but I haven't been gone all that long.”
“You know what I mean,” she replied and hoped that would be enough. She didn't have the energy to keep staring at her; the glowing hurt her eyes. “It's good to have you back, girl.”
“Glad to be back,” Sally said, and it sounded so deeply from her heart. “Can I have a latte?”
“Of course you can!”
She worked her magic with coffee and cream, thankful for the excuse to turn her back a little. There was something magnetic about Sally today, something that made the air around them come alive. Was she flirting? No, this was something more. It had to be.
“I brought you something.” Sally reached into her purse. “Here. I found this in a little shop in Mexico.”
“Mexico? That's where you were?” She handed the coffee over just as Sally reached across to deposit two dollops of gold into her hand. “Oh, it's heavy! This isn't real gold, is it? Where on earth did you get it?”
“Oh, a small town named Aquetzalli,” came a voice from the back of the café, in a booth so out of the way that no one ever sat there. Sally's eyes widened, her new smile wavering as she turned to face the stranger. Her dark, James Bond-esque suit came into sharp focus. ”Nice to see you again, Sally.”
There was a scream. Sally's mug slipped from her hand, tumbling to the floor in slow motion. The latte sloshed over the rim, and with a sudden, yet anticipated, crash, the glass shattered, leaving a mess on the floor.
And Sally was gone—glow, scream, and all. Anyone watching her would have sworn she had disappeared into thin air, like someone had flicked the channel and taken her with it.
“This never happened,” said the woman in the suit, rising smoothly from her seat. “I'm sorry to say that this café has been compromised. There is LSD in the water, and you're all tripping balls.”
Mona didn't believe her, but the next thing she remembered was waking up in her bed, her phone vibrating up a storm as it filled with alerts. It was 3 a.m., and her mouth tasted of peaches. It made sense that the whole thing was one very strange dream, even if it meant that the Men in Black hadn't really infiltrated her café.
When she drove up to the Jitterbug to check on the alarms, the police were waiting for her. On the floor, almost exactly where the mug had shattered in her dream, was a trail of sand and bloody footsteps. It led through the back door, the footsteps disappearing in the parking lot, lost in the snow.
“We're lucky we have so much to go on,” said the uniformed man crouched by the stain. “Blood, tire treads, DNA? The hard part is figuring out the chain of events. Anything seem out of the ordinary today? It might give us clues to what led up to this.”
Mona wanted to tell them about Sally's sudden dematerialization and the strange woman in the immaculate suit, but it had all been a dream, hadn't it? Even as she opened her mouth to deny everything, a figure in the alley caught her eye, and she snapped her mouth shut.
There. The Men in Black were here. They were real. And the secret agent lady was more than just familiar; she was the woman from New Year's Eve. The one Sally had shared pie with. Mulder, Scully, and Agent J all rolled into one.
A finger to her lips. A hand on her hip, but not her hip—no, on the thing hiding under her blazer. Mona gulped. Being in the center of an alien conspiracy suddenly wasn't all that fun anymore.
“Nothing at all. Nothing strange; it's just a café,” she told the cop, and the woman from the shadows nodded, striding forward with her hands at her side now, thank god.
“You are to cease this investigation at once,” she ordered bluntly, waving a government ID for the cops to see. “We'll take it from here.”
“Agent Felling!” one of the officers exclaimed. “I haven't seen you here for a while. Not since—”
“Now, no one needs to hear about that,” Felling replied with a curt nod.
“Is it one of those cases?” The cop rolled his eyes. “Spooky-dooky?”
“No, no. But you know the rules. Also, what the hell is spooky-dooky supposed to mean? That’s not a word, Blake.”
The cop rolled his eyes again, a master of eyeball cartwheels. “Is Cross with you?”
“He’s out back with the footprints. He’ll tell you the same thing, but don’t go bringing up spooky-dooky around him. He’s a lot less interested in expanding the dictionary.”
As Blake and his colleague slipped back into the night, a chill ran through Mona that had nothing to do with the snow.
“Did you... did you drug me?” she asked, trying to brush the goosebumps from her skin. “Did you seriously drug me? My patrons?”
“Go back to sleep, Ms. Hanks,” the agent replied. “It's been a long day.”
“I deserve an answer!” Mona reached for her shoulder, the goosebumps giving way to actual tremors. “What in the hell happened back there? And don't tell me any of this LSD bull. I've seen you before.”
The agent let out a sigh, rubbing her temples before dropping her hands to her hips again. She didn't look defeated, though admittedly it was hard to tell with all the scowling.
“If I gave you a check right here, right now, would you please go home and sleep it off?”
“I won't be paid off that easily.” Mona was getting somewhere. The tremors branched out into excitement, which was, all in all, exciting.
“Nonsense. Everyone has a price; we just need to find yours.”
“Give me a trip off this planet, and I'll never tell a soul what I witnessed today. How's that?”
The agent laughed. “You and me both, sister. Take the money, go home, and sleep. Tomorrow, everything will be back to normal.”
“And what about Sally? You can't possibly deny what happened in there.”
“Who are you going to believe?” A ghost of a smile played on Felling's lips. “Me, a certified government agent, or your eyes? Because, believe me, I'm not prone to lying, and eyes can play tricks on the best of us.”
****
Sounds good, Right? You can find out more about Earthstuck, and the rest of the Starstruck Saga on Amazon right here.
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