Dan was with about twenty of the town's younger and tougher folk. Their leader had brought this group here to protect the town. Dan's father handed him a sturdy pair of scissors. Some had joined out of duty and others out of fear. Dan didn't know why they were here, or why everyone had a pair of scissors. Most had an extra pair.
The townsfolk had a small car hidden in the bushes. They waited silently. In the distance, the sound of the strangers' car coming made everyone take their places, hiding in the bushes. Many were holding their scissors like a knife. Just as the car was about to pass them, the townsfolks' car backed into the road to block the way.
The brake lights on the strangers' car turned bright red. It stopped. The three people inside got out onto the dirt road. A small woman and two men, one tall and the other was short. The woman stood there, unafraid of what was going to happen. Her sharp features stood out in the moonlight, especially her long pointed nose. She began to talk, "So it seems as though you've found out who we are. We just want to say that we understand what you have to do." An angry man in the crowd yelled out, "You killed my wife in town yesterday!" Other angry cries came out from the crowd. There had been alot of violence in town. Dan had seen the news reports about someone letting loose some new kind of man-eating alligator.
"We want you to know that we accept our fate. After we go back inside to say our last words to each other, we will come out and you can do your thing. But first, I'd like to say a couple of words to you.
"Transforming into your form has changed us considerably. We have learned about love and kindness. We learned it by watching television..."
Mostly everyone was shocked that they could talk at all. The leader of the townfolk broke the silence. "No way. There's no way you could understand TV. You are only alligators!", he said, sounding like he was repeating something someone had once told him. His hairless scalp reflected the yellowness of the moon.
"But we did. Not much at first, of course. We watched the educational channels, and learned and grew. The more we learned the faster we grew, as individuals and as human beings. We love, and that is all."
Dan had grown up watching TV. He had learned the alphabet from Sesame Street, and how to read from the Electric Company. His sense of humor came from the jokes told on Welcome Back Kotter, and he had learned about love while he and Susie were watching the first Borg episodes.
Dan spoke up, "Hey, wait a second! If they can watch TV, they can't be all that different from us. We should let them live, at least." The strangers had started heading back to their car. Dan tried calling to them, "Did you say that you can really understand television?" No one paid any attention to him.
"Shut up, son."
And Dan shut up. The three strangers went back into their car. The leader of the townsfolk led them across the street where the strangers would come out. Everyone had their scissors ready. They were like twenty pairs of long sharp teeth.
Dan was hanging back, and started looking for another weapon. Searching the roadside, he found a metal pole. Ideal for beating something on the ground. Everyone started to get tense. Dan didn't know anything about alligators.
Dan went up to the leader of the townsfolk, "In which direction is the sea? Shouldn't we know which way they are going to be heading?" He said he didn't know.
Dan waited behind the crowd, right behind the strangers' car. The door to the car opened and out came the three alligators. Each went a separate way, each followed by five or more townsfolk. It was darker under the trees and Dan couldn't see what was happening. One of the alligators had sought shelter under a log by the side of the road, and the other two were in the brush near the swamp. Some people were yelping, presumably having gotten bitten. They all seemed intent on jabbing with their scissors, although Dan could not see them actually make contact.
To get a better view, Dan moved closer to the log. He was holding the metal pole ready to strike. The person attacking the alligator under the log was not striking the alligator. Neither was the alligator trying to bite the person.
Just then the strangers' car, which Dan was behind, started accelerating in reverse. Dan yelled, `They're getting away!", and held the pole to smash the back window. He might get the driver, but he might not. He would get run over, but the strangers would be slowed down enough for the others to catch them. The rear lights washed Dan with blood.
Before he let go of the pole, he saw the driver's face. It wasn't one of the strangers. Instead it was the leader of the townsfolk, his eyes glowing in the dark. Dan stood there in a trance.
Dan lay on the ground, run over and paralyzed. All he could see was the moon above the trees as everyone else turned back into alligators and slowly ate him alive.