I'm trapped in a mystery-comedy--romantic intrigue between couples in a big, mazelike house. Who loves who, who's cheating on who? All very entertaining, at first.

But we slowly start realizing... we're being spied on.

And not just watched. Soon as we start planning to expose our hidden watchers, invisible motorcyclists roar through the halls, transparent hands claw and punch us.

But we fight off this wave of ghosts, and tear off one ghostly hand. No. A plastic glove. They've invented a plastic that makes you invisible!

Take it to the cops. They just say "We'll have to develop this plastic now." But they discount everything we tell them, and the evidence we amassed disappears, and they deny it was ever there. I realize some of the police are in on it too.

I'm just a kid. What more can I do, against aliens? I know that's who they are. They have a ship landing and leaving daily, disguised as a 1950s Chevy.

A middle-aged woman lands... my mom. At least that's her disguise. But now that I know about the plastic, I can see through the illusion, see her real form--tall green and insectile. My mom.

Our dad's not real either--another alien, of a scaly reptilian species, nothing like our mom. I don't know how I feel about him, but it doesn't matter much, since he isn't with us long.

Not that he abandons us or anything. Our mantis-mom kills and eats him.

And goes right on being my mom.

She starts to eat my sister too. We tried to stop her, kill her--we heard there's a way--fire? I burn her "eggs" (an integral part of her, though physically separate) in my sister's boyfriend's old farm stove.

She still won't die. She must, though, they're biologically vital.

She doesn't.

Her species also can't take alcohol--dissolves away her flesh. So I find some vermouth and pour the whole bottle on my so-called mom. She laps it up, guzzles it, and laughs at us in her insect burr. And goes back to devouring my sister, bite by ladylike bite.

Over the years, she raises me as her son. She's an illusionist: others see a human mom. I'm forced to accept living with a monster day to day.

She sets rules for me. She treats me affectionately. I have to remind myself I saw her kill and eat two people. I'm so alone, and she's so flawless, I just might forget...

And start to reciprocate the monster's affection.

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