It was over three years later when P.T. returned to Strangetown. He had travelled a lot, visiting several countries, until he thought he could stand seeing his old house again. And the baby, of course. Glarn would have given birth by now. He wanted to see his child.



Glarn was overjoyed to see his friend again. “We were so worried about you! But, well, I saw the Drone’s grave, and… I guessed what happened. You have to tell me all about your travels! Oh, but first… There have been some changes around here…”

“I know!” P.T. beamed. “The baby, right?”

“Oh, you already heard about Jenny? Yeah, she’s a real handful. Keeps her parents busy.”

“That’s a sweet name! Does she look a lot like you?”

“Oh, she takes just after her mom.” Glarn laughed.

P.T. looked slightly confused. “Wait, what mom?”

“My wife, of course. Come on, I’ll show you the kid. You’ll love her!”

“Oh, no, I was talking about that other child. You know, ours.”

Glarn stopped right in his tracks. “Wait. What.”



“Well, when you got abducted. Come on, you can’t possibly have forgotten that.”

“That… was you?”

“I thought you’d love that!”

“…”

“…”

“HOW?”



Still woozy from the experience and barely remembering anything after the strange light had swallowed him up, Glarn made his way into the bedroom where Glabe was already fast asleep. She had probably thought he was busy looking at the stars and gone to bed.

It had been a strange experience, but Glarn was certain he had been abducted by aliens. Tomorrow, he’d have to call P.T. and tell him all about it. Maybe that had been his people. He wondered if he had told them about P.T. and Drone. Had they asked? What had they done, in fact? Hoping he had made a good ambassador for his people, Glarn crawled under the covers and fell asleep.



He felt weird. Like something was changing inside of him. He had put on some weight, but maybe his growing appetite was responsible for that. But he was always so tired now.

Glarn had called his work and told them he was sick. The doctors could find nothing wrong with him and had settled on stress symptoms. Glarn had mentioned his abduction once, but the doctor had looked at him for a while and referred him to the next psychiatrist.



P.T. seemed to have disappeared. He didn’t answer the phone and after a while, the phone service had been cut off.



It was Glabe who eventually suggested to Glarn that he might somehow be pregnant. All the symptoms fit with what she had read on the subject and she had read a lot. Glarn first dismissed the idea as ridiculous, but Glabe convinced him to take a test.



Ridiculous as it was, the test was positive.

Glabe was pretty sure that basic human biology meant she couldn’t be the father. Glarn agreed to that, but basic human biology also told him that nobody else could be the father. Also, basic human biology told him that he couldn’t be the mother either.



In the end, the most logical conclusion seemed to be that Glarn was suffering from a severe illness that made him seem pregnant. Zo’s suggestion that it might be related to the alien abduction was clearly ridiculous.

Even when Zo, who was now acting as Glarn’s doctor, reported that she could hear two additional heartbeats.



“And then I gave birth to twins. It… Well, it was really painful and really weird.”

“Twins!”

“You could look less excited. This is all your fault!”

“I’m sorry.”

“Especially the rest. If you hadn’t left… Well, we would have known what was going on. We wouldn’t have…”

“What?”



Zo’s opinion was that the girls needed to be studied. That was her opinion on everything and Glarn was sure that eventually it would have subsided and she would have been a normal grandmother, but Glabe acted first.

She didn’t want those weird green children, especially in her situation, but they were here and they were part of the family. And she would not let Zo study them and experiment on them. Since nobody else was willing to act on it, Glabe did and left with the twins.

“We were all still in shock and mom was just babbling on and on and I kept staring at the girls and dad was trying to feed one of them a grilled cheese sandwich and Glabe kept yelling… And when I woke up the next morning, she was gone and the girls with her. She’d left me some divorce papers and the number of her lawyer. And I haven’t seen her since.”



Glarn tried to find his wife and children, but Glabe had covered her traces well. Life went on and Glarn found a sympathetic listener in Kitty Hogleg.



They were married in a private ceremony.



And eventually, Kitty gave birth to a cute little girl they named Jenny.



P.T. was shocked at Glarn’s story. His children were lost. His friend’s marriage was ruined.

They looked at each other in silence for a while. Eventually, Glarn spoke up. “So, there you have it. I don’t know where the girls are. Really. I wish I knew, but on the other hand, I’m very happy with Kitty and Jenny here. And, to be honest… I’m not sure what to do with you now that you’ve told me your role in this. I’m kind of angry. Maybe… it’d be best if we didn’t see each other again.”



P.T. nodded and hung his head. He heard a baby yell from the next room and Glarn disappeared to take care of her. As P.T. was getting ready to show himself out, Kitty came downstairs.

“So, you’re the missing link here, P.T.?”

“I guess so. I really messed things up, didn’t I?”

“In a way that was very like you.” Kitty smiled. “I’ll talk to Glarn. Make him come around. And in the meantime, I may be able to help you…”


And that was the story of how Glarn Curious found out that he had been impregnated by P.T. Smith, and how Glabe took off with the children. We'll see what happened with them at some other time.

Coming up next: All the babies.