Alex Anderson & The Cosmic Turbine
an excerpt

Crickets could be heard chirping away from behind their hiding places, but none of them offered assistance to the young boy. Alex looked around despairingly, realizing that whatever it was he had seen, it must have been have been nothing more than a trick of his imagination. His sister was constantly telling him how overactive his brain was.

“Umm, excuse me…”

Alex jumped at the sound of the voice. It wasn’t Duncan. He didn’t think anyone else had been out in the field that night, and since he didn’t outright recognize the scratchy voice he had been doubly taken by surprise.

“Who’s there?” Alex asked uneasily as he looked around for the mystery guest. It was growing darker by the second and for as brave as he was he didn’t want to be out in field with some random person that he didn’t know.

He heard something shuffle around in the nearby shrubs that he had bounded over in his eagerness to reach the lake. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you, no, sir,” the scratchy voice replied. “I’m a little lost, sir. Could you maybe point me in the right direction, sir?”

Alex took a few steps backward, slowly inching away. “Who are you?”

The rattling of the shrubbery finally ceased when a small creature stepped out into the moonlight. Alex jumped for the second time when he saw who had spoken to him. Standing several inches shorter than him was a creature he could only describe as humanoid. The thing’s rounded face was almost as broad as its shoulders, with a sloped forehead and a bulbous chin that reminded him of a frog’s. It had a tinge of silver hair around its scalp that was slicked back, and its clothing was unlike anything Alex had seen before.

Strangest of all was the creature’s skin color – green.