Jake Errand sat in a booth at Mano's Diner eating the all-night breakfast at ten minutes to midnight, when the aliens dropped in. When the door opened, he had just taken a big bite of blueberry-filled pancake, blissfully closing his eyes to chew, so it took him a minute to notice. Actually, at first, Jake couldn't even tell they were aliens. Only later, as events unfolded, did their true nature become apparent to him. In fact, when they first walked in, they looked just like cops.

Diana, the late-shift waitress, got them their danishes and coffee on the house, bottomless cups, always hot. Jake himself was in there often enough to get the bottomless coffee cup, but he still had to pay for the breakfast. But then, the cops lent the place an air of respectability, which Jake most certainly didn't.

The aliens sat in the booth by the door, where cops always sat, in case they had to rush out on an emergency call, Jake supposed. Not that he had ever seen real cops rush. Waddle, yes. Rush, no. After a while, when they had been sitting there for some time, Jake finally noticed something strange about their behaviour.

Diana, always spring-fresh in her pink uniform with the little touch of lace around the neckline, had come by twice to refill Jake's coffee cup. Both times, she had followed on past the cops' booth, and each time, the cops hadn't needed a fill. The second time, she brought them new cups – always hot. And they hadn't touched their danishes.

Jake, himself, personally despised danishes, with their industrial white icing that smelled like the glue he had used to stick model airplanes together as a boy. But the cops habitually wolfed them down, complaining about their burgeoning waistlines all the while. That, Jake realised, was the other thing wrong with the cops. They had been sitting there nearly half an hour, and he hadn't heard a single complaint. Not a single word, come to think of it. Definitely odd.

Jake was still mulling that one over when the kids walked in. The kids came in nearly as often as Jake, pouring down caffeine and grease before returning to their night's studies. Study all night, sleep all day in class. Jake had been a student himself, once. The kids sat in the big red fake-leather booth under the window, where they always sat. Most of them just ordered coffee, but two had burgers and fries. The coffee-drinkers might cadge a fry or two – it wasn't that they weren't hungry, Jake knew, just that they didn't have the money. Been there, done that, too. Although, even back then, Jake had preferred blueberry pancakes to fries.

"Purple!" shouted one of the kids, nearly startling Jake into spilling his coffee. Jeez, think he'd be used to that by now. The kid with the curly hair shouted that any time he saw the colour. Jake turned a little, for a better look. Yes, one of the girls had taken her coat off, revealing a purple sweatshirt underneath. Jake felt a smirk forming on his lips. The curly-haired boy would try to pull that off her in a minute. If he got lucky, he might get a flash of bra, or even bare tit, underneath.

Jake flicked his gaze away, not to get caught staring, and noticed something very strange indeed. Both of the cops were staring at the kids, one turned right round in his seat to do so. Most unusual. He heard squeals, and turned back just in time to see the curly-haired boy pull the girl's sweatshirt over her head, revealing, to Jake's disappointment, a plain black t-shirt underneath.

Diana came out of the kitchen with the kids' burgers then, and Jake turned to watch her, then looked back to the cops. He had finished his pancakes, but he still hadn't figured out what was going on with the cops yet, so he got out his newspaper and pretended to work on the crossword, while he watched them.

"That creepy guy is here again." Jake heard one of the kids whisper, one of the girls.

Jake looked at 22 down. Town in Tennessee. Too short to be Nashville, must be Memphis. The kids were eating now, exchanging Monty Python quotes and complaints about their classes between bites. They hadn't seemed to notice anything wrong with the cops, but when Jake looked towards the door, there they were, still with their uneaten danishes in front of them.

Jake had nearly the whole puzzle filled in by the time the kids called for their bill, and the cops still hadn't moved. Then, he felt something, a disturbance in the air, and looked up halfway through filling in a word to see the cops disappearing through the door. He saw one of the kids look hungrily at the abandoned danishes. Ah, the desperation of youth.

Jake got up and followed the cops out. By now, it didn't surprise him to find no cop car out front. The cops went around to the side of the diner, where a hedge screened the building from the used-car lot next door. He saw a wedge of light appear in midair, saw the cops walking up to it, on what looked like thin air, but turned out, when he followed them, to be an invisible ramp.

Inside, Jake found himself in a strangely-shaped white room, all odd angles and concave surfaces. He tiptoed across the uneven floor to a door in the far wall. It slid silently back at his approach, revealing a short, fairly normal-looking corridor. Jake stepped forward, and immediately, a door to his right slid open. Inside, Jake saw mirrored walls, and, hanging from the ceiling, the two policemen.

He froze on the spot. Then, as they turned gently on their hangers, Jake noticed they gaped open down the back. Policeman suits, complete with heads. But what had been inside? Jake knew the sensible thing to do now would be to leave, pretend this never happened. But Jake had never done the sensible thing. If he had, he'd have a good job now, something to do with finance maybe, instead of barely scraping enough of a living to afford blueberry pancakes.

Jake backed out of the room and moved on down the corridor. The next door that opened, on his left, led to what looked for all the world like a really expensive kitchen. Jake didn't recognise any of the actual gadgets, but they all had that brushed-stainless, serious-cooks-only kind of look. The room next to it contained a big round table, already set with strangely-shaped eating implements like twisty chopsticks, and little bowls. The chairs were low for such a high table, but basically chair-shaped.

The next room, on the right, was clearly someone's bedroom, and the next, its duplicate. Jake eyed the last door, the one at the end of the corridor. Behind that must be where the aliens lurked. Suddenly, the full stupidity of staying here occurred to him. The room behind that door must surely be the bridge, just as he must surely be aboard a flying saucer. And that kitchen – they must be planning on abducting the kids and eating them. No wonder they hadn't touched their danishes.

Jake turned to make a run for it, and found one of the aliens standing in front of him, brandishing a foot-long fork with two very sharp-looking tines. He backed away, all the way through the final doorway and onto – he had been right – the bridge. Jake flicked his eyes from side to side, taking in instrument banks with dials and lights. Then, something caught him in the back of the knees, and he fell, landing on a soft, bouncy surface. He lay there, on some kind of padded chair, waiting for the alien to finish him off.

It stood in front of him, looking like a cucumber wearing a grass skirt, holding up the fork in two long tentacles. Jake suddenly realised what he had taken for a skirt was also composed of tentacles, though much shorter and stouter. The fork vibrated.

"Don't worry. We mean you no harm," the fork sang.

A translator? "You're not having those kids," Jake said, wondering how he would stop them from doing whatever the hell they wanted.

"We don't want them," the fork replied.

"What do you want then? Me? I warn you, I'm old and tough."

"Breakfast." Somehow, the fork managed to sound wistful. "We saw the sign, all-night breakfast. But the pastries the pink human offered smelled of something poisonous to our species, and the food the – kids – ate smelled no better. We want what you had."

Jake nodded. "Blueberry pancakes. They're the best."