Once again, he woke up in the middle of the night, thankful that his body did this instead of wetting the bed like he used to. A large yawn fell out of his mouth as he pulled the covers away from his body. Once more, he noticed that Butterscotch was no longer lying next to him. He did not like this. He wanted to just go back to sleep. He didn't want to face the house outside of his bedroom in the dark. Mother Nature refused him travel back to dream land, however, so he got out of bed and walked to the bathroom. Just as the night before, he saw a flicker of blue light bouncing down the hallway from the living room. Immediately a picture of his cat sitting there on the couch, changing the channel, rushed into his mind. He didn't know what he was going to find in the living room, but he guessed it would scare him, so he decided to go take care of business before making the trek.
He managed to open the bathroom door without a sound. He kept it open as he walked inside, just in case its hinges would sing on the way out. As he took care of business, the light outside flashing against the walls mocked him. He hoped this would be a sliver of respite from the horror he would soon face, but it was no break at all. His heart kept pounding faster in his chest. His job done, he crept silently back into the hallway.
He didn't look down towards the living room yet, but back inside his bedroom. He could just go back to sleep and pretend that this had never happened. Maybe it was those story magazines that had piqued his interest, but he just had to find out what was going on in his living room. He forced himself to turn, and placing one foot reluctantly in front of the other, made his way down the hall at the pace of a tortoise. He knew it wasn't his papa; the man never would be up late watching television. He worked too hard all day and woke up too early to be doing anything but sleeping at this hour. He had heard all kinds of stories from mama of how hard of a sleeper his daddy was. Sometimes when something spooked her, it was all she could do to get him to wake up and go check it out. Nope, whoever it was, it was not papa.
He reached the end of the wall, then stopped and ducked down to crawl towards the back of the couch. He could hear the clicking of the television remote before the channel would change. Fearing the worst, he prepared himself to see his little cat Butterscotch changing the channels as he rose above the back of the couch; but a small orange kitten is not what Henry Jr. saw as his eyes peered over the cushion.
Instead, there was a small bald green gangly man with a too large head; holding the remote beneath him. Henry Jr. tried very hard to suppress it, but a small scream of terror jumped past his lips before he could stop it. The little man spun, and seeing Henry Jr. let out a small sound of his own as he jumped back almost falling off of the couch. Henry Jr. snapped out of fear's ice cold grip and ran down the hallway like a disturbed nest of hornets was after him. He lunged into his room, slammed the door, and leaned against it so the creature couldn't fallow him in. He had heard a shuffle on the couch as he bolted down the hallway, and then just before he closed the door, footsteps following after him. He heard those same footsteps now approaching his bedroom.
They stopped right on the other side of his door. He didn't want to keep leaning against it; he wanted to push off like an Olympic swimmer, and dive out of his bedroom window. He could run to Pa's truck and just drive until day light. But if he stopped holding his weight against the door, then the creature could come in. He tried to catch his breath and calm down. He heard slow measured breaths on the other side. He stood there leaning, in a terrible conflict to run, for what seemed like an eternity, and then he heard a strange small voice. It sounded like three voices, speaking at the same time in different languages; English coming out louder than the others.
"Henry, it's me, your cat Butterscotch."
Henry didn't reply, he was too scared to speak. The voice continued.
"I'm so sorry I scared you like that, I never meant for you to see me like this; in my true form."
Henry Jr. found his voice.
"True form, what are you talking about?"
"Some of those stories in your magazines aren't too far from the truth Henry. I am from another planet my friend."
"You're an alien? I knew it!"
"Yes. I am, as you say, an alien to this planet."
"Well, what are you doing here, and why did you act like you were a cat?"
"I was sent here to study your planet. I needed to find out if your kind are peaceful, and how advanced your technology is."
"But why?"
"I was selected as part of a group to go out to all the planets where we have found signals of life forms; to see if they pose any threat to our way of life. Even if your people had proved hostile, you would not have posed a threat to us anytime soon. It will be some time before your kind is able to produce the vessels which can perform space travel to distant solar systems. Though I have witnessed much hostility against one another among you, it seems that many of you are peaceful lifeforms. Your family certainly is."
"Guy, this is going to be one wild story to tell the guys back when school starts again."
"You must promise me to never tell anyone of this; I can only be your cat Butterscotch. I was going to stay on your planet until the average life span of my false feline frame had passed, but now I can leave and go back to my home to report my findings. I have grown fond of you and your family, and I am very glad that I will be able to report that this planet forms no threat to our way of life anytime soon."
"So, if I let you in, you're not going to hurt me or anything, right?"
Talking to the creature had decreased Henry Jr.'s nerves, and now his curiosity at seeing the little man up close was getting the best of him."
"As I have told you, I like you and your family. You have shown me nothing but love and compassion."
"Well, yeah, but that's because I thought you were my little kitten, not some alien!"
"If you let me into your room, I will not hurt you. I am your friend Henry."
"Well, okay. I guess you wouldn't know my name unless you really are Butterscotch. I always wanted to meet a real alien! Do you have a space ship and everything?"
"Yes, it is behind your parents' barn."
Henry Jr. slowly opened his door, and then stopped while just a bit of it stood ajar. His eyes traced the alien's form, standing right outside of his bedroom. He took a deep breath, and then swung the door open.
"Thank you Henry."
Butterscotch walked inside and closed the door behind him.
"I did not want your parents to discover me; your mother is already very suspicious of me. She is always trying to sneak up on me and catch me doing something. Night is the only time I have been able to roam around the house freely. It takes a lot of concentration holding the form of a feline.”
"A what?"
"My apologies; feline is just a fancy word for cat."
"How come your voice sounds so funny?"
"On my home planet, we usually speak in three voices at a time. It is hard for me to speak in only one, so I just try and make my other two voices quiet while we communicate."
"How can you speak in three voices at once?"
"That is not important, I must go now Henry so I can report back home."
Henry Jr.'s eyes began to glisten with warm tears.
"So I guess I won't have a little kitty cat anymore."
"I am sorry. I know how much you have wanted a kitten."
He wiped away the first tear that had made it past an eyelid and slid down his cheek. He was tougher than this, he was talking to an alien after all!
"That's okay. I always knew there was something wrong with you. Your purring never did sound right, and you acted like no other cat I've ever seen; and I've seen a lot of them. You really scare my mom."
"Yes, I know. I am sorry for that. Now that I'll be gone, she will not have to be frightened of me anymore. I hope that it will not make you too sad that I am leaving you now that you know I am not really a cat."
"Yeah, I guess not. The butterscotch I know doesn't really ex
ist does he?"
"No, he does not. I am sorry that I was forced to deceive you, but now you can see why I could not be seen in this form. I did not want to simply hide and observe from afar. I wanted to blend in so I could hear all of your conversations, and discover what your lives are really like."
"Yeah, I could see why you would want to do that."
"Well, I must be going now."
"You have to go right now?"
"Yes. I must fly my craft away from this planet, while it is still night time, so that there is less chance anyone will see it as I depart."
"Could I see you just one more time as Butterscotch, you know, to say goodbye?"
"It would be the least I could do to repay you for your kindness to me."
In less than a second, the green man had morphed into little old butterscotch. He purred and rubbed his back up against Henry's pant legs until his tail brushed past. Henry bent down and stroked him a good many times from head to toe as full tears began to fall from his young eyes. He picked him up and gave him a long hug. He put him down, scratched him behind his ears, and then opened the window for him.
The cat brushed one more time up against Henry, and then leapt for the window sill and jumped down. Henry walked to the open air and watched his friend walk casually towards the barn as if to try his paw at catching some mice. When the cat got to the front of the barn he stopped and looked back to Henry, then disappeared behind its red walls. Before long Henry Jr. saw a light begin to glow behind the barn. As he watched, a massive egg shaped spacecraft rose up above him. Its hovering form covered about half of the barn with its width. Henry rubbed his eyes, 'this had better not be a dream,' he thought. He pinched himself, it hurt. This was no dream.
The craft sat there for a while hovering, making no noise whatsoever. Then just as fast as you can say, pig slop, it flew off into the night sky. As it shot up it left a quick zipper sound behind. Before long it looked like just another star hanging in the great fabric of the speckled night sky.
"Wow!" Henry said to himself.
He watched until the light blinked out, and then closed the window and got back into bed. He lay there, unable to wrap his mind around what he had just witnessed. It was just so amazing. He tried to sleep, but he was just too excited. He was still really sad about losing Butterscotch as his kitty cat, but he knew it wasn't really the cat he had come to love. He couldn't stay too sad, he did get to see a real alien space ship after all. It was a bitter sweet goodbye. Eventually Henry Jr. fell asleep. As he dreamed a small smile remained on his face.
It took until midway through breakfast until his parents noticed that Butterscotch wasn't napping under Henry's feet.
"Where is that cat of yours sweetie? You've been awful quiet this morning; is everything alright?" Melinda said.
"I don't know where he, I think he might have run away."
"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that son," Henry Sr. said. "I'll tell you what, as soon as we're done with breakfast here we'll get in my truck and go look for him; alright?”
“Okay,” Henry Jr. said. He couldn't help but notice the small look of relief on his mama's face when she had heard that Butterscotch might be gone. They all hurried to finish breakfast, and then the two walked out to the truck. As the engine started up, Henry Jr. looked to the barn, wishing he could see the ship floating above it one last time. Even though Butterscotch had turned out to be an alien, Henry Jr. still dearly missed him. Pa shifted it into gear, and they checked out all the placed around the farm where the cat might have gone to. When they couldn't find him, they cruised out onto the road and headed each way as far as Pa figured a cat could get overnight. The cat was nowhere on the road. Pa turned around and headed for home.
“I sure am sorry son. I don't know why he would just run off like that; he seemed to like you a great deal.”
“It's okay Papa,” Henry Jr. said. He kept his eyes in the sky as they drove over the rough road, while the sun peaked over the tall hills in the distance. After they parked the truck, while they were walking back to the house, they heard a noise coming from the barn. It was the sound of a cow bell, Mama had tied to hang down low for the kittens to play with. Butterscotch had never played with it.
“Now what in tarnation is that?” Pa said as they changed their path to the barn. He swung the barn door open, and there inside was a little kitten playing with the cow bell.'
“Well what do you know? After driving over all that, we missed him right here in this barn! He must have come in here after we searched the place.”
Henry Jr. rushed into the barn. He could tell right away that it wasn't Butterscotch. The little cat looked just about the same, but it moved differently. It moved like a cat; a real cat. He stroked it behind its ears. It pressed its head into Henry Jr.'s hand, and began to purr. The purr was different too, it was normal. As Henry Jr. picked up the little guy, he thought it was a purr he could get used to. He knew who the cat was from; how else could the cat have come here, when their nearest neighbor was over ten miles away?
“You ready to go tell Mama that we found him?”
“Sure Papa. Let's go!”
Henry and Melinda would never know that this wasn't the same Butterscotch. As he followed his Pa back to the house, he turned back to look at the barn. Just then he saw a large black egg shaped craft, turning white, above the barn. Then it flew off into the blue sky and was gone just like that. Henry Sr. turned back at the sound of the space ship ripping through the air as it left.
“What was that son? You unzipping your coat?”
Henry Jr. unzipped his coat in a flash and then turned to face his father.
“Uh, yeah Papa. I was just going to let Butterscotch warm up a bit in my jacket.”
He put the cat in his coat, so just its little head stuck out from his chest, and followed his dad inside.
THE END
About the Author
Dan first started writing stories in elementary school, where he and a friend would skip lunch and recess once a month to eat in the library while hearing all about the new books on the shelves. His love for reading, as with visual art and music, has now extended into creating his own fiction. He is also a huge fan of podcasting, and all of his stories are available for free in audio. He works as a digital artist and lives in Washington State with his beautiful family of six.
Thank you for reading my short story. For more about me check out my website where I blog about my writing journey, write and podcast book reviews, and have links to many more free stories both in eBook and audio book formats: www.DanDanTheArtMan.com
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The Last Butterscotch Page 2
