Our story thus far: Musing that I wanted the years ahead to be filled with adventure, I was startled when my 11-year-old dog agreed, “Let’s have an adventure!” and then told me she had seen an inter-dimensional portal in the back yard. The younger dog whined, but I slid the patio door open.
“Eww, you need to pick up back here more,” said Summer, who was the timid young dog.
“I’ll take care of it after we deal with this inter-dimensional portal that Dejah found near the garden shed,” I said, watching my step anyway.
“It’s right over here,” Dejah said.
“I’m still a little freaked out that you’re talking,” I admitted.
“That freaks you out, but not the inter-dimensional portal floating in the air?” Dejah said.
“Well, I have to say that adds to the freakout factor.”
We reached the garden shed. Sure enough, some sort of round glowing thing was hanging in the air, kind of a cross between the Guardian of Forever in Star Trek and the Stargate in Stargate except without the artificial structure forming it, and we could see another world through it. Not an alien world — we could see grass and trees on the other side — just a different world.
“Hang on,” Dejah said, looking up through the portal. “What’s that?”
“I don’t see anything.”
“That’s because you’re not looking from down here.”
Then I saw what she meant. A shadow fell across the opening, and then a huge, scaly foot appeared. It was ghastly and gnarled and looked more like a tree trunk than animal skin, with three clawed toes.
The foot began a cautious descent through the portal into the back yard.
“I’m going back in the house now,” said Summer, and she scampered up the stairs to the deck.
I held my breath, wondering if the creature was flexible enough to fold itself through the portal. And if it could, was it friend or foe? Just because the foot was incredibly ugly didn’t mean the beast had ugly intent, right? Still, I wish I had thought to bring a baseball bat.
The foot reached the ground and landed on a fairly squishy bit of dog poop.
We heard an unearthly sound, a cry that chilled me to the bone, after the foot turned to make its bottom visible to the creature on the other side of the portal.
The best approximation of the sound we heard is something like, “EEEWWWWWWW.” The foot quickly lifted back to the other side of the portal, which then shrank suddenly into nonexistence with a decided “Pop!”
For a moment there was no sound except Dejah’s panting.
“Well, that was interesting,” she said then.
“I told you that you needed to pick up back here!” Summer called from the deck.
“We just fended off an alien invasion!” I said, defensively.
“Or ruined an opportunity for first contact,” Dejah said. When I looked at her curiously, she added, “Hey, I watch Star Trek, too, when you do. You think all I do is nap down here?”
“OK, OK, I’ll go get the pooper scooper,” I said.
“That will have to wait,” said Dejah. “Look behind you.”
I turned, and at first I broke into a delighted smile, but a corner of my mind was terrified.
