They had been on the way to his little league game. Grandad drove his big old Caddy. Joe always loved the crazy big dashboard buttons, the funky tail fins. He remembered Grandad cussing loudly, leaning on the horn, and then the car slipped sideways. After that: darkness. Until

“What else?” I asked Charlene. “I’ve got the flour, mayo, artichoke hearts, sun dried tomato.” She nodded. “And don’t forget the knife sharpener, and the nylon rope.” I hate the holidays.

The cake was deliciously moist, fluffy, and sweet. In a word: perfect. Reggie hated every single bite. She chased the last bite with a cold glass of milk. Then she dabbed at her mouth with that perfect linen napkin. That was when she decided she was going to kill Lydia.

The consultant walked into the boardroom wearing shorts and a sports bra, her legs and arms covered in Pokémon tattoos. The roomful of unimpressive executives avoided eye contact and fidgeted in their seats. “I was brought here for one reason and one reason alone,” she said.

My cell phone suddenly crashed. When it started up again, there was only this long binary number on the screen: 010100110111010101100010011011010110100101110100. Then the car wouldn’t start. The same number scrolled across the digital dashboard. What the hell was going on?

The e-mail only gave a date, time, and location. But the moment I read it, I knew what it for what it was: not just an invitation but a challenge. I grabbed my gear from the locked steamer trunk in the basement, and loaded it in the car. In the dark before dawn, I left.

“Try the pasta,” Estelle said, “it’s out of this world.” So I did. And she wasn’t kidding, it really was - that became evident later that night when the Tupperware of it I brought home burst open. The “noodles” crawled from the container, onto the counter, and booted my laptop

The shaking only intensified as every clock on the wall of the clock store rang. The ringing was louder and longer than she’d ever heard. A white faced office clock was the first to shake loose and with a bang in hit the floor. It was quickly joined by a cuckoo, a grandfather,

“At least he won’t wreck anyone else’s marriage. Not now, not ever, “ muttered Albert as he mortared the few remaining bricks into the basement wall. Albert’s wife Ann, tied at the wrists and ankles, cried through the gag in her mouth from the opposite wall where he’d placed her.

The knight was moist. That was because he had fallen off his noble charger, Edgar and into a bog. Which happened to be made of chocolate. Now the slowly moving viscous chocolate was seeping into his armor, slowly penetrating every crack and crevice.

Rusty glanced up at the sky. Yep, the spaceship was still there. He lowered his head and trudged down the abandoned road. The spaceship had appeared about a week ago and then, people began disappearing. It was amazing how quickly everything went sideways.

Jerry glanced down at the photograph in his hand, then back up again at the woman sitting alone at the back of the cafe.