“That’ll be $14.99,” said the delivery girl.

“Oh, I forgot my wallet inside,” Chip said, and he raced into the living room where only moments before his elderly mother had sat on the couch, knitting, but where now there stood a grinning, sinister, hellish figure too horrible to imagine, covered in fresh, steaming entrails that had seconds ago been inside the now-hideously-mangled corpse of Chip’s oh my GOD IT’S JUST TOO HIDEOUS TO DESCRIBE IN WORDS A HEALTHY HUMAN MIND MIGHT HOPE TO COMPREHEND AND IF I TRIED YOUR BRAIN WOULD EXPLODE IN A HAIL OF CABBAGE-Y GELATIN!  RUN!!!  SAVE YOURSELF!!!

Monday morning a black cat appeared at Ian’s bus stop.  He shooed it but it only cocked its head.

At work Ian saw it outside his window staring at him, ignoring passersby even when they offered food.

At lunchtime the cat appeared at Ian’s heels.

“Go away!” he shouted.

It only stared.  Then its eyes widened; it crouched, ready to pounce.

A sudden, icy fear seized Ian and he turned to flee.  Moments after the screeching vehicle crushed Ian’s body the cat leaped high into the air, snagging in its claws the invisible prey for which it had so patiently waited.

Kyle watched something resembling a neon octopus swim beneath the survey craft.

“This planet’s a mystery,” he said.  “Something left a footprint so huge an ocean formed inside it.  From orbit the print looks bipedal in origin but there’s only one of them.  And we know almost nothing about the creature that made it.”

“We know it had a leg span of about four-hundred thousand kilometers,” said Greg, staring upward.

“What?  Nothing could be that—”  Kyle followed Greg’s gaze then stopped mid-sentence.  “Oh.”

He got on his transmitter.

“Command, this is Johannessen.  We found the other footprint.  It’s on the moon.”