The creature's spasms ceased, and the hole in spacetime above it shrank to nothing. Its insectoid features reflecting hideously in the moonlight.

Unfortunately, it wasn't actually dead. I found this out when its reaction to "being tapped with a stick" was "throw the bastard across the lawn".

I turned to my partner after he helped me to my feet. He shrugged. "Well, Bill, this would be why we're told to be fucking careful with these things."

"Right, right. Not trained xenobiologists. But I wasn't gonna shoot something that might have acid blood or something."

"Nah, you were just going to poke it and pray that wasn't part of a mating ritual."

"Har har." I looked around. "Bill, where the hell did that thing go?"

Bill pointed halfway up the nearby apartment building. "Doesn't fly real well, but it jumps." It was, in fact, climbing onto a balcony, and tapping on the glass door. "Get ready."

"Why?" A scream, and the creature unfolded on legs that suddenly seemed capable of kicking through a horse, and with a buzz of wings, steered for a roof across the street. "Oh. I suppose that was inevitable. Car?"

"Both of us. We'll need air support to follow it, but..."

"Yeah, fuck. Think this one's safe?" We jogged to the car, and I started giving our report on the terminal.

"Eh, if it's like an earth bug, and it can't mate, probably. If it likes eating people while it's a larvae, and this one's a pregnant female..."

"Ugh. Well, one good thing about this nightmare." We had to stop at the intersection as a herd of 6-legged wildebeest ran through the crosswalk. "I don't have to edit for political correctness."

We caught up with the perp in a mall... the failing CD place, dancing with a set of headphones on its thorax. It seemed terribly disappointed when we didn't understand it trying to speak to us with a bebop beat.