Giles and the Alien at the Door by Daniel George

Giles didn’t know why the alien had knocked on his goddamn door in the middle of the goddamn night but he was at least grateful it wasn’t those bloody kids again. His relief at not having to chase them off again was dampened by the annoyance of still having to haul himself out of bed, pull on his dressing gown and shuffle his way down the stairs and open the door. Seeing an alien on the doorstep was another annoyance on top of a growing list that Giles was fed up with.

“What?” He barked as he leaned his bat against the wall. No need to scare this one off.

The alien looked startled. Its mouth opened and closed whilst looking at Giles in his blue striped dressing gown and slippers.

“I asked you a question.” He pulled the sides of his flapping dressing gown together and tied the strap in a bow. So much for getting a good night’s sleep around here.

“Umm, sorry to bother you. My name is Verduntus and I am a Duterite. An alien as they would say in your language. I am from a small planet outside of your solar system. It is an honour to meet you and your species.” Verduntus held out their left hand. Giles looked down at the hand. It took him a moment to realise what the alien wanted. He rolled his eyes. The alien sounded like one of those posh damn politicians from London that paraded around in their Rolls Royce pretending to be a ‘man of the people’. And it didn’t even know which hand to do a proper handshake with. Clearly this alien had not done their homework when researching this planet. “I crash landed in the field behind your house. Your atmosphere is a bit thicker than I had anticipated.”

“As if that’s my fault! As if it’s my atmosphere!” Giles scoffed. The audacity of this alien.

“No, no of course it is not.” The alien lowered its hand and stared past Giles into the dark, warm home behind the human. Giles huffed as his home heated the outside world. As if he was made of money. “It was no human’s fault but I crashed nonetheless. I have also hurt myself as you can probably see.”

“Of course I can see that.” Although in the dim light it was only now that Giles could see the slow drip of grey liquid coming from the alien’s side and the awkward way its right arm hung limp. He huffed again. He had cleaned the porch only this morning.

“Sure,” the alien continued. “I was hoping that I could rest at your residence for the night. If that is acceptable. Your house size would suggest that you be able to accommodate me.”

Giles paused, his eyes narrowed, inspecting the alien. It was darker green with hairier skin than those Hollywood films had predicted, although he had always suspected that they were never very accurate. Its large head and big eyes fulfilled the stereotype but this meek creature that stood on his porch didn’t seem like intelligent life. And judging from his initial conversations with it, he felt that this particular one was on the dumber end of the spectrum. How they were entrusted to pilot a ship was beyond Giles. It did look badly hurt, Giles conceded, but he wasn’t a doctor and he definitely didn’t know anything about alien anatomy.

“Can’t you sleep in your ship?”

“It is rather badly damaged.”

Giles scoffed again. Definitely a dumber one.

“It is not easy piloting a ship through an atmosphere on an unknown planet you have never visited before,” the alien said a little louder than before. The effort took its toll and the pause afterwards was filled with several shuddering breaths.

“Yeah sure.” Giles shook his head. The alien had only been here for a few minutes but was already full of excuses. He had been driving for 61 years and had never crashed. People had crashed into him of course, but the atmosphere, an inanimate object, had hardly crashed into the alien’s ship. What sort of advanced alien species would be unable to safely land in London or any other big city and instead crash land in Pucklechurch? To Giles such thoughts seemed preposterous.

“So may I please stay the night at your residence?” said the alien, staring up at the human with its oversized bronze eyes. Its lips twitched upwards at the corners for a moment into a nervous smile. Giles scowled back. It was almost like it was some sort of trick.

“What’s wrong with the Bed and Breakfast down the road?”

“It is closed. For something called ‘renovations’. It’s not a word that I understand. My language skills are not the best among my people.” The alien wobbled over to support itself against the doorframe.

Giles looked down at the alien. “There’ll be no building works there for another two weeks at least and hopefully never when the appeal is launched. You can’t fool me.” It was his turn to smile.

“Well, there was scaffolding surrounding the building when I went…” It didn’t manage to finish before Giles surged past and into the street. His slippers slapped on the slabs of the pavement. His smile vanished.

“Not for another two weeks. Two weeks at the minimum was what the council said,” he said, peering into the darkness up the road with his hands on his hips. “Not for another two bloody weeks! That idiot Lawrence! He’s had it this time.” He strode up the road before remembering he had a visitor on his doorstep and turned back around. “Are you sure? Are you absolutely certain?” He yelled back at the alien who hadn’t turned around. Clouds of hot breath billowed out of the man as his dressing gown flapped back open.

“I know what scaffolding looks like,” It muttered between ragged breaths. “And there was a container full of rubble as well.”

“A skip? Was it a skip? I bet he doesn’t even have a permit for that!” Steam seemed to be rising from him and the Alien turned a little to watch the old man work himself into an angry craze of emotion. “I’ll have you this time Lawrence. Just you fucking wait. You and your bloody extension. Gone!” He cried, fist raised at the darkness of the street. He couldn’t see the B&B from his house but that didn’t matter to Giles. What was happening was a disgrace and he would rectify it. A trip to the council offices awaited him in the morning.

He paused, sucking in great gulps of cool night air. And then it hit him. They had broken their planning rules. He could report them and finally get his revenge on Roger Lawrence. He and his silly wife Pam would be forced to pay a heavy fine. The extension work would have to stop. They may even have to sell and move elsewhere. Giles would be heralded as a hero. His excitement turned to glee. Tomorrow was going to be a great day. He whipped back around at the alien who was still leaning against the open doorframe. The pool of blood had grown.

“What did you say your name was again?” He called back up the path to the alien.

“Verduntus,” It wheezed at him. The alien was almost bent over double, it tried to keep its focus on the warmth coming from inside the house.

“Couldn’t you have picked a more normal name before meeting humans?”

Verduntus didn’t respond, just stared down deep into the house. The green skin had gone several shades lighter.

“Right, come on. Get inside. You can stay.” Giles strode back up to his porch and put his arm around the injured alien. He took some of its weight before pulling it around to face him. “One night though. I ain’t a bleeding hotel.”

“Unlike Lawrence and his Bed and Breakfast.”

“Ha, exactly!” smiled Giles. The alien did have a sense of humour at least. “I’ll turn the heating on in the guest bedroom as well. That cheapskate Lawrence wouldn’t even sort out fresh bedsheets for you.”

“Thank you,” mumbled the alien. It shifted its body through the doorway.

“Don’t sound too grateful then!”

The alien ignored him. It struggled into the corridor feeling the warmth and safety within.

“Don’t get blood on my carpet either.” But the alien did not hear. It moved steadily into the hallway, the thought of rest giving it renewed strength. The bleeding had slowed but a single drop rolled down its arm and landed on the carpet.

“What did I just say?!”