Watch What You Wish For

Nan curled up under her blanket on her front stoop as she looked up at the early spring sky. The stars in the constellations twinkled and winked back at her. The roar of a jet engine captured her attention and she looked around to find the lights of the passing airplane. She watched as it passed over, on its way to the west.

The radio receiver next to her started beeping loudly. Nan looked at the display then banged the top of it a few times until it started working properly again. She hoped that tonight would be the night the aliens would hear the radio signal and make contact.

She’d bought a WWII-era radio transmitter and receiver at a Salvation Army thrift store over the winter. The transmitter was located on the top of the hill across the street from the mobile home park, up in the woods where no one would see it or be bothered by it. Nan had connected it to a solar-powered transformer so that it would run continuously.

The message she was sending was in Sumerian, the first known written language that they claim was given to them by the gods from above. It was a simple message: I come in peace. I believe in you. Take me with you.

Nan listened to the static on the receiver with the occasional burst of sound from planes flying overhead and police radios as she stared up at the stars. She closed her eyes and dozed off to sleep to the lull of the static.

In her dream, she was being whisked into the sky in a bright light and found herself on a strange flying object in a small grey room with a mirror covering one wall. There was a chair in the middle of the room. Nan sat down on it and stared at her reflection in the mirror, assuming it was like the ones they had in police stations so they could see her but she couldn’t see them.

“Welcome,” a computerized voice said. “We have received your message.”

Nan smiled. “Hello to you, too.”

“You are the first to send a message in the language we gave you. Very clever.”

“I thought so.”

“You do know we cannot allow you to return to earth, right?”

“That’s fine by me.”

“Do you know what we do with humans?”

“Anal probes?” Nan asked then snickered. There was a loud sigh from the aliens.

“No,” the voice replied tersely.

“Okay then. What do you do?”

“Harvest the organs then eat the undeveloped brains. They’re so sweet and tender, much like lambs and baby cows.”

Nan could almost hear the aliens salivating on the other side of the wall. “Do you usually waste time talking to your meal?”

“No, we don’t,” they replied.

“So why the delay? If you’re going to do it, get on with it.”

“We think we may use you in our breeder program instead.”

“What makes you think I’d have sex with one of your type?”

“What makes you assume we would be able to have sex with your type?”

“Oh!” Nan replied.

“We will make a deal with you. Give us your eggs and we’ll return you to earth but you’ll have no memory of the event.”

“Deal.”

The door slid open and several small cloaked beings entered. Her wrists were clamped down to the arms of the chair and the chair was tipped back. When she was horizontal they tugged her pants off and strapped her legs into stirrups like at the gynecologist.

“You could have just asked nicely!” she yelled.

The aliens were silent as they pushed a device inside her vaginal passage and prongs attached to her ovaries. Nan cried out as all of the remaining eggs were sucked from her ovaries, cursing at them over and over until they were done.

“You could have knocked me out or given me some medication!” she screamed as tears streamed down her face.

They released her legs then put her pants back on and returned her to an upright position before they retreated from the room. She never saw their faces and their hands had been covered by gloves.

“Thank you for your generous contribution to our breeder program. We are going to return you to earth and you’ll not remember any of this, though you’ll be sore for a few days. We would not recommend intercourse until the pain subsides.”

“Bastards!”

“Yes, we really are. Good-bye,” they said and the room fell silent. The clamps on her arms fell away and she was returned to her front stoop via the same bright light.

Nan was woken by a loud burst of gibberish from the radio receiver. “Huh? Wha?”

She sat up her and her ovaries twinged, causing her to cry out in pain. She’d only felt pain like that when an ovarian cyst had burst. Nan turned off the radio and staggered into the house. She collapsed on her bed and held her stomach.

As she laid there, she tried to remember her dream from when she was outside but all she could recall was a blinding light and intense pain. Nan chalked both up to the real world pain interjecting itself into her dream and rocked herself back and forth.

“One day,” she said reassuringly to herself. “They will come for me.”