Allie sneakily leaned over her checkout desk, and nabbed a copy of the National Enquirer.

Technically, employees weren't meant to sit idle while they were meant to be working, but Wednesday nights were always quiet (which was to be expected, given that they were in a two-bit convenience store on the edge of Sycamore, Ohio), and Allie had ran out of things to do. The stock take was completed, the shelves were all filled, and the store was goddamn spotless. Allie had been told to just sit at her checkout, and wait for customers, but her patience was beginning to wear thin. The tabloid would be a welcome distraction; she was just about to read an article about the giant robots that had allegedly invaded Detroit, when there was a sudden roar of jets overhead.

The ground shuddered violently.

Tin cans were knocked from their shelves, clattering to the ground with an ungodly din. The lights flickered. There was the sound of squealing tires, as the traffic outside screeched to a stop. Allie thought she heard at least one collision. She looked around at her co-workers; everybody seemed as confused as she was. And then it hit her. Oh god, she thought, there's been a plane crash.

She stood up, and was about to run towards the door and look outside, when the lights flickered again, then winked out.

With a groan of rending metal, the store's flat roof was lifted and torn from the building, as if it was little more than the lid on a box. Allie crouched and covered her head as dust and plaster rained down on above, landing in her hair. Without the lights, it should have been dark, but the world was lit by a diffuse red glow.

Allie looked up, seeking out the source of illumination. She found herself staring in to a large red circle, a single cyclopean eye, like a grim parody of the moon.

The circle was set in the 'face' of a mechanical giant - the creature was easily the size of a two-storey house, probably larger, although Allie didn't fully trust her own sense of judgement. Its face was inhuman, its intentions unreadable. Allie's hand reached for the gold cross that she wore, and she closed her fist around the tiny pendant. So this is what Armageddon feels like.

"Tiny Earth creature," the behemoth said - its voice was a synthetic alien imitation of human speech, and Allie swore that she could hear motors whirring as its jaw moved. "Lord Megatron demands flesh."

Was it speaking to her? It was hard to tell where it was looking. Allie glanced around; Janice, a fellow cashier, was taking cover under her desk, while Scott the 16-year old shelf stacker was hiding in a photo booth, peeking out from behind the curtain.

"Please don't hurt me," Allie told the giant, as calmly as she could. "I've got a baby daughter."

"That is of no importance!" the giant bellowed. Its voice was so deep that Allie feltit rather than heard it, a rumble deep in her chest. "Lord Megatron DEMANDS FLESH." The shout almost knocked her backwards.

When Allie's ears had stopped ringing, she heard Janice mutter, ever so quietly, "Jesus God, it's a flying purple people eater."

Well, I saw the thing coming out of the sky. It had one long horn and one big eye...

Allie clapped her hand over her mouth, and took a deep breath. She was so transfixed by the thing in front of her that she didn't notice the second one, standing opposite... Until he spoke.

"Oh, for the love of-..." he said. "Excuse me. Vhere do you keep your flesh?" His voice carried a sense of polite disinterest, and if Allie didn't know better, she would have thought he had a German accent.

"My... what?" Allie turned to face the second entity, as it was peering through open roof, like a kid peeking inside a doll's house. Compared to its partner, he was more superficially human-looking (Allie belatedly realized that she saw it as a 'him', rather than an 'it'), with mismatched red eyes and a solemn, blue face. Wait. Wait. Was he wearing... a monocle?

He looked at Allie as if she was mentally stunted. "Your flesh. Organic matter zat has been designated for consumption, to be converted in to energy. You organic life forms derive sustenance by consuming the flesh of other organic life forms, correct?"

Allie stared back. "Do you mean food?"

"Your pathetic Earth semantics are irrelevant!" The Purple People Eater's central eye contracted like a camera apeture.

Monocle just gave her another bored look. "Vhatever you call it. Food. Yes."

Good god. He really did have a German accent.

"Um." Allie shifted her weight from one foot to the other, and tentatively gestured around at the various shelves. "This is a convenience store. We've got lots of food."

The Purple People Eater (or P.P.E.) reached in to the shop with a massive pincer-like appendage, and clutched at a stack of tinned corn. It grabbed a handful of cans, thoughtlessly crushing them between its metal claws; a mix of twisted metal and and pulverized sweetcorn fell from between its 'fingers', spattering to the floor.

The creature seemed to consider this, and attempted to pluck a lone can off the ground. By itself, the can was too small for it to grab, and it rolled under a vegetable rack.

The P.P.E. ran out of patience. "This is WORTHLESS to us," it boomed, smashing its fist down on the nearest shelf. Allie winced at the sound of splintering wood.

"We've got frozen ready meals," she said, in a very tiny voice, and pointed to one of the store's chest freezers.

Monocle leaned in, picked up one of the chest freezers, and pulled it free of its wiring. It was just big enough for him to carry in both hands. He gave the freezer a tentative shake, holding it up to the side of his head, and seemed satisfied by the way it rattled. "Zis'll do."

P.P.E. nodded once, and focused on Allie again. "When Lord Megatron destroys your planet, your death shall be quick and painless, in reward for your compliance," it said.

Allie stared. She opened her mouth to speak again, but was interrupted by a quiet click. The two giants immediately looked towards the photo booth where Scott was hiding.

The youth was still peering out from behind the curtain, although he was now holding his cell phone, having used it to take a picture.

"Vhat is zhat?" Monocle asked, blandly.

P.P.E. was intent on finding out. It leaned over and grabbed the photo booth, shaking Scott out of it, then picked the youth up by his left leg. Allie might have been going nuts (and given that she was trapped in a supermarket by a pair of mechanical giants, one of whom spoke a Nazi out of a war film, she wouldn't have been surprised), but it looked as if the P.P.E. was more than slightly disgusted. It handled Scott the way a prissy 4-year old girl handles an earthworm; holding him at arm's length, and letting him dangle from its pincers.

Scott, of course, was yelling and swearing at the top of his lungs. He threw the phone to the floor, where Monocle immediately squished it under a fingertip.

"He's just a kid! Put him down, please!" Allie shouted.

Scott was unceremoniously dropped on a stack of toilet tissue rolls - afterwards, P.P.E. wiped its pincers down its flanks, as if it had touched something nasty. Scott then sat up, and pointed frantically at Monocle. "Jesus Christ, they're fuckin' Decepticons! I'm going to put this in my blog."

Decepticons.The word sounded familiar to Allie. She didn't follow the exploits of the heroes and villains that inhabited America - if she had wanted to get involved in that sort of stuff, she would have moved to the big city, rather than somewhere like Sycamore - but she was sure that she'd seen the name mentioned in a tabloid at least once. Allie had never given it much thought. Previously, supervillians had always been something that happened to other people.

"Scott," she hissed. "Don't piss them off."

The P.P.E. rose to its full height. "We are Decepticons," it said. "Mark us well. For when our Lord Megatron chooses to lay waste to your unworthy planet, we shall be the last thing you shall see. Better species than you have fallen to our legendary might. Remember this day, humans, for few creatures have been permitted to witness our glory and live."

Scott's bottom jaw hung open for a good three seconds or so, and then he concluded, "Awesome."

Allie swore to God that she saw the P.P.E. smile.

"We are the ones who destroyed the Metazeroid Phalanx," said the P.P.E., grandly. "WE were the ones who extinguished the final life-flame of the crystalline God-planet Ytij. WE were the ones who defeated the infamous Kaarnaak Paramilitary forces at the Battle of Nib. WE were the ones who slaughtered the last Garthok, and left it to drown in its own fluids. WE..."

"Are we done here?" Monocle muttered.

P.P.E. paused abruptly, and somehow managed to give Monocle a dirty look. "WE... Are done here."

It turned its back on the supermarket, and stomped away.

Allie heard a metallic crunch. It seemed like the P.P.E. had stepped on one of the vehicles in the car park, for the sheer hell of it.

Monocle shook his head, then tucked the chest freezer under his arm, and followed after his colleague.

"Decepticons," breathed Scott, sounding far more happy than he had any right to be. "Decepticons stole OUR ready meals. Fuckin' A."

Janice dared to stand up, and shook her head. "I thought they were going to abduct us."

"What was that all about?" Allie murmured, but before the others could reply, there was a sound that she couldn't quite describe, followed by the rising roar of jets. The din of the turbines reached a deafening crescendo - and, seconds later, two aircraft screamed low overhead, triggering all the car alarms in the area.

Allie wobbled over to her checkout desk, picked up the copy of the National Enquirer that she had been about to read, and threw it in the nearest trash can. Only then did she call the police.