BLACK SUITS
by James McConnaughy
The creature ran its hands across the floor, pulling at more and more objects and waving them at Billy. Billy pressed himself up against the wall, as the objects were arranged on the floor. It took him a moment to realize that the creature, the alien, was arranging the objects in the shape of letters.
When it was done, the objects spelled out XELL. The creature tapped the ground below the letters and then pressed a misshapen hand to its torso. “Xell,” he said, pronouncing the X like a Z. “That’s your name?” The creature clicked loudly, in what sounded like an affirmative. Billy smiled and knelt next to it, rearranging some of the objects so they spelled out Billy. “That’s me,” said Billy, tears welling up in his eyes. “I’m Billy.”
The two of them were so intent on the objects that they didn’t hear the door open, didn’t realize they weren’t alone, until they saw a pair of canisters rolling across the floor, spraying green gas everywhere. Outside Bruce, a man in his late 30s wearing a black t-shirt and jeans, slammed the door shut and leaned against it, glancing at his watch, before running his hand through his short, greying hair. “Alright,” he said when he heard a thump from inside. “We wait another minute or two for the gas to dissipate, then we go in.”
“Why not now?” Dave, a considerably younger man in a similar outfit asked. “I mean, we’ve got these,” he said, holding up the gas mask hung around his neck.
Bruce sighed, the special sigh he reserved for when Dave didn’t know something, which was quite often. Dave was rapidly learning to hate that sigh. “Because the gas we chucked in is designed to go through gas masks, at least at first. A lot of people wear gas masks around aliens.”
“Oh. How does it go through gas masks?” asked Dave quizzically.
“Fucked if I know.”
