Denise pressed a screwdriver expertly into the inside of the network box. Two rooms down, which meant she was halfway done with this shitty school, and it's shitty archaic computers. She flipped the switch and started to leave, but the light stayed on. Only it was a deep orange, and it came flooding through the wall of windows.

Denise slowly inched toward the window to get a look at whatever drunk hillbilly had parked their yee-yee truck in front of the playground. About halfway there, the monitors flicked on with colors and fuzz that shouldn't be possible with the RGB set-up, colors that barely registered to the human eye.

A shrill sound blasted her ears as several of the monitors exploded in a glass shower that filled the room.

Denise ran to the windows and her blood froze at what she saw. The swings levitated sideways, teeter totters teetered and tottered of their own accord, the slide shook, and the monkey bars rattled from the force of jets overhead. Different colored lights began to dance across the painted bricks around Denise's window and flash in her awestruck face.

A flying saucer lit up the playground below with a tractor beam set to strobe. The deep blue glow thrummed over the slide, and cast a pattern of blinking shadows under the monkey bars.

Three toy riding animals with spring bottoms all stood up, stretched out their stiff plastic muscles, removed the springs from their tummies and walked into the school.

A plastic cow, a porcelain colored horse, and a miniature Tyrannosaurus Rex all brought to life by a flying saucer that had done what it came for, and vanished.

The dinosaur was the last through the school's back door. Before it crossed that threshold, it slowly and deliberately looked up to the computer room window.

Denise scrambled to make it to the door in the dark room, but a purple searchlight flooded the hallway. With the only exit blocked, she slid under a computer desk with her foot just inside.

The light cast itself over the rolly chair she'd bumped on the way under, still spinning slightly from her panicked hiding.

Imitation dinosaur legs cracked apart as the alien walked up to her desk. As the plastic broke, it's true form could be made out under the cracks and fallen bits of plastic. Skin that had a vaguely reptilian quality, but with only slime where scales should be. Steam eliminated from the flesh and filled her lungs. The breath she had so painstakingly kept shallow turned to a breathless cough. The alien stopped in its tracks, and turned toward her.

Denise kicked the chair out of the way and ran for the door. Her heart pounded with every step, lungs with every second, and the piercing roar of the lizard behind gave her an adrenaline that blurred the surrounding hallway. The thunder of hoofs broke out from the other end. Denise left the staircase in a leaping charge, and slammed into the wall at the bottom. When she looked up, the cow toy was hunched over the top step, sprouting grotesque wings that glimmered with slime as the lights fluttered back on.

She rounded the corner into an empty lunchroom permeating with an eerie stillness. As Denise huddled under a table, hugging her knees for warmth against the fright, she truly felt like a helpless child. The alien hovered around the lunchroom without flapping its wings. Gravity itself couldn't stop these creatures, nevertheless, it gave up its quarry and moved on to search some other room.

Denise found out about her sprained ankle soon after leaving her hiding place for the principles office and using the key they gave her for tomorrow night's work. Once safely inside a locked room, she tried her phone, but it wouldn't turn on. The landline being out confirmed that it was a signal jammer, and not low battery.

"Shit," her eyes spotted a disposable flash camera on the desk, and a sliver of hope returned. Normally there are parts that need soldering, but she could craft a makeshift EMP if luck held out. It was a long shot, but her fingers began working. Working unsteadily, still shaking from adrenaline, as the lights passed by the room with unwavering determination in their search.

The window shade fluttered as an alien walked by with five long eye stalks bursting out of a plastic cow mask. The eyes fluttered around on top of the appendages rapidly. It would be nothing short of a miracle if she wasn't noticed, ducking behind the desk and muttering obscenities.

Using her screwdriver, she pried open the chassis of the flash capacitor and connected a bunch of wires to the circuit board. Without soldering tools, the EMP shocked her when the button was finally pushed.

"Come on," she urged her phone to turn on for an agonizing five seconds until at long last the small fruit flashed onto the screen, "yes!"

She dialed 911 as she hid under the desk. The thundering of fake hooves came rushing towards the source of a discharged EMP. With one kick the alien abomination broke the door down.

A large, spindly hand broke free of the porcelain camouflage as it gripped the edge of the desk. A half dozen eye stalks leaned over the desk and focused on her simultaneously. Clumps of hair fell to the floor as she was dragged off of her feet and slammed against the table. The other alien hand held a needle poised at her jugular. With panicked flailing, she managed to grab one of the eye stalks. The wet slime burned the skin off of her palm, but she twisted anyway. It bent, a little, and then it snapped clean. The alien dropped her with a strange gurgling noise to express its pain.

Her foot injury nearly disappeared in another cloud of adrenaline and fear. Denise ran somewhat lopsided down a corridor of lockers. When she turned the corner, she ran headlong into a burly figure who stood stone-cold still. She fell to the floor in a daze. The overnight janitor helped her up, but his attention seemed to lie in the hall behind him.

A mop bucket sat between them and a hallway overcome with a thick, asymmetric coat of steaming fungus. It spread the length of the freshman wing.

"What is it?"

"I don't know, but we need to run now!"

"Run? From what?" The blocky man tensed up the grip on his mop, and held it like a spear. Denise tried to grab his shirt sleeve and pull him back down the hall, but he was stoic.

The alien rounded the corner and the janitor rushed into action. He took a swing at the clump of eye stalks and broke several at an odd angle. The alien made a high-pitched screech and fell into a lean on the wall.

The victory was short-lived, as the third alien made its appearance behind the man. It dragged him into the burning fungus where his shoes melted, then his feet became cauterized to the floor as the rest of him sank screaming into the acid. To his credit, he threw her his keys and pointed to the door behind her.

She fumbled to find the right key with a heart pounding adrenaline into every blood vessel in her body.

The janitor had melted enough to quit screaming and the sound of the alien's eye stalks cracking back into an upright position graced her ears from over her shoulder.

The next key slid into the door.

Then, Denise was running across the gym floor to the glowing exit sign. The adrenaline wore off and she was limping again. Only a few steps left to the door and she collapsed at the feet of a pissed off reptile.

The other two aliens surrounded her and everything went black as a T. rex foot came down on her face.

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Two officers stepped out of a police car with guns raised at the alien spaceship tractor-beaming four figures up. Aboard the ship, an oddly unintelligent alien leans over a medical table to tell Denise that she is an odd cow.