She gripped the steering wheel a little tighter and pressed the accelerator to the floor. The drive back from Las Vegas was a nail-biter. The hot, dry desert air was always ripe for electrical storms, but with the storms often came hail and torrential rain. Since the cloth top of her 1964 Beetle convertible was currently stuck in the down position, come hell or highwater she needed to stay ahead of the storm that was brewing behind her. The last thing she needed was for her newly restored leather seats to get soaked.

"As we live a life of ease,
Everyone one of us has all we need,"

 

“All we need," she echoed into the night.
            

"Sky of blue and sea of green,

In our yellow submarine."

"Ah-ha!" she couldn’t help but laugh.

"God, Bri, I’m trying to sleep."

She rolled her eyes and glanced over at her bleary-eyed boyfriend. "Oh sure, you can sleep through the wrath-of-God lightning and thunder, but I sing the Beatles and it wakes you up."

"Guess so," he chuckled and sat up. Strands of blinding light suddenly cut through the darkness over them, followed by a deafening clap of thunder. "Wow!"

"Yeah." She checked the rearview mirror again and pressed her foot to the floor. "I don’t know if I’ll be able to outrun the storm."

He turned around to look behind them. "It looks nasty back there."

"I just got the seats replaced. I can’t let everything get wet!"

He turned back to face forward. "I should’ve bought a tarp when we found out the roof was stuck."

"It’s not your fault, Brad. We’re in the desert. It’s not like rain is the first thing you’d think would..." Her voice trailed off as the sky lit up with an orange glow.

Streaks of orange and yellow striped the darkness overhead. Brad looked up as Brianna fought to keep her attention on the road.

"What is that?"

"I don’t know," he said. "Maybe a meteor shower or something?"

"A meteor shower? Can we see those without a telescope?"

Brad shook his head without taking his eyes off the strange light show. "I don’t know. It was just a guess."

The bright light faded gradually away as she mulled over the idea. "Meteor shower... Survey says?"

Brad laughed, "Oh please, I didn’t wake up in some sort of Twilight Zone edition of Family Feud, did I?"

She shrugged and smiled. "Oh I love this song!"

Cranking up the volume, Major Tom blared out her speakers.

"4 3 2 1
Earth below us
drifting falling            

floating weightless
calling, calling home..."

Her hair blew across her face as she sang along. Brianna reached up with one hand to brush it back behind her ear. Suddenly Brad turned off the radio.

"Hey why’d you do–"

"Pull over Bri."

"What? But the storm–"

"Just do it. Pull over now!"

She turned on her blinker and gradually moved out of the highway lanes. When the VW finally stopped on the shoulder, she looked over at Brad. "What’s going on?"

"Come with me."

"Where? We can’t just leave my car here."

"Look Bri." He pointed out toward the mountain in the distance. "Do you see that?"

She followed his arm, looking out into the darkness, but what she saw made no sense. A bright round light was dancing in the distance, no not dancing, hovering. It wasn’t touching the ground. The purity of the light blinded her as it darted across the sand. Each time she blinked, she could still see it’s pattern displayed on the back of her eyelids.

"What is it?" she whispered.

"I don’t know," Brad replied. "But I don’t think we should sit here and wait to find out."

The wind gusted around them making a cyclone out of her long hair. Brianna looked over her shoulder at the fury of the electrical storm. "We can’t just leave the Bug here. We just finished restoring it."

Brad hadn’t taken his eyes off the strange lights in the distance. "We can’t stay here, Bri. We’ve gotta find a place to wait this out." He opened the door and slid out of his seat. "Come on. No sudden movements."

"This isn’t the X-Files. I’m sure there’s an explanation."

Before she could say another word, the light sped across the desert toward them.

"Get down!" Brad screamed.

Brianna hit the pavement with a squeal as the light passed over them. Brad was scooting under the car, his hand outstretched toward her. "Come on, Bri! Grab my hand."

The pavement was still hot, burning right through her shorts and tank top. Sliding on her stomach, she stretched out her arm, reaching for his hand. Brad clutched her wrist and drug her under the car. Wrapping his arm around her, he tugged her even closer, shielding her as best he could. Tiny glass shards and rocks scraped into the soft skin of her palms and knees, and sweat dripped off of her nose as she baked between the Bug’s hot engine and the heat of the desert highway.

Light from above surrounded the car, then moved around the edges slowly. Her heart fluttered in her chest. "It’s looking for us."

"We don’t know what it’s doing," Brad whispered.

Thunder crashed as the storm crescendoed. The sky suddenly opened up and rain pelted the pavement. The Bug groaned over them as the wind tore at the bumper. The bright light shifted toward the front of the car, moving closer to the ground.

"Don’t look at it!" Brad yelled as the rain turned into a thunderous hail.

But she couldn’t look away. The light was hypnotic, something she’d never seen before. Unable to stop herself, she brought her hand up, reaching out toward the ball of light. Brad was yelling something, but she couldn’t hear him over the roar of the storm. She wriggled, stretching, trying to free herself from his grip as the light beckoned her.

Electricity suddenly shot through the darkness, exploding in front of her as it speared the pavement. A deafening screech cut through the night, exploding the windshield above them. Brad yanked her back. She covered her face as the glass rained down. The spell was broken.

They stayed hidden under the car until the storm finally moved past them. "Are you ok?" he whispered.

"I think so. Is it gone?"

"I don’t see anything. Maybe it followed the storm."

He started to move, but she caught his arm. "No, don’t. We should just wait. Someone will drive by eventually."

"Will they?" he asked. "We haven’t seen a car all night."

A chill shot down her spine as the revelation struck her. "You’re right. That’s... Not possible. This is the only way back to Los Angeles."

"It’s usually busy, but not tonight. Maybe they put out a storm watch or something. The highway patrol might’ve closed the freeway."

She knew he was grasping at straws now. Anything to explain what was happening to them. But a rational explanation right now seemed impossible.

They remained under the car until her legs were cramping. No amount of shifting seemed to help. Still no other vehicles passed by.

Brad grunted, turning on his side to face her. "I can’t stay under here any longer. I’m going to get out and have a look around. Ok?"

"Not without me, you’re not." She shook her head. "If you’re going, then I’m going with you."

He nodded and started to drag himself across the pavement until he could roll away from the VW. Brianna scooted out from the other side and groaned as she pushed herself up.

Moonlight shone on the wet highway. The air felt thick and heavy. Puddles baked on the asphalt. She stretched her back, wiping sweat from her brow as she searched for signs of traffic.

Brad stood up on the other side of the car surveying the damage.

"I can’t believe there aren’t any other cars," she said. "The storm blew over. They wouldn’t still have the freeway closed."

"Maybe it’s just really late." Brad checked his watch and frowned. "My watch stopped."

Brianna checked hers. "Mine too. That’s weird."

Brad nodded and started making his way around the front of the car. "Jesus!"

"What’s wro–" Brianna’s voice trailed off when she saw what rested at Brad’s feet.

A round disc was embedded in the pavement. Smoke rose up from the charred carcass of twisted metal. "Is that a UFO?"

Brad shrugged, his brow furrowed. "I don’t know, but whatever it is... It’s bleeding."

"What?" She bent at the waist, trying for a closer view. Then she saw the thick liquid seeping through the seams of the disc. "Maybe it’s oil or something."

"Maybe."

But he didn’t sound convinced. Before she could say anything, read and blue lights flashed in the distance.

"It’s about time," he said.

"Yeah..."

The black unmarked sedan pulled to stop behind her VW Bug convertible. The engine died and a tall thin man dressed in a dark gray pinstriped suit exited the vehicle. His partner climbed out of the passenger side in a coffee brown suit with a red pocket square. They both wore dark glasses which struck Brianna as odd since it was the middle of the night. Without a word, the driver approached front of the car and looked down at the twisted metal.

"It’s over here," he said.

His partner walked over and withdrew a slim digital camera from the inside of his jacket. After snapping a few photos, he turned toward Brianna and Brad, nodded and then walked back to his car without a word.

Brianna looked over at the driver and said, "That’s it? Who are you guys?"

"I’m Agent Smith, and that was Agent Jones. We’re from the National Weather Service."

Brad rolled his eyes. "Oh Please!" He pointed to the crushed disc in the highway. "Ok Bri, this is the part when they tell us some bullshit story. Guess what this is supposed to be? Not an alien or a spaceship, no way! What is it really Agent Smith, huh? Is it a weather balloon or wait, maybe swamp gas in the middle of the desert?"

"I’m not at liberty to answer."

Agent Jones returned with a white tarp and a crowbar and went to work, prying the disc out of the highway. Brianna couldn’t believe her eyes. They were just going to put the spaceship in their car and drive away?

"What’re you going to do with it?"

Agent Smith knelt down to assist Agent Jones in wrapping up the metal disc. When he straightened he looked and Brianna and answered, "On behalf of the National Weather Service, I apologize for any inconvenience this has caused."

He spun on his heel and went back to his car without even looking back.

"That’s it?" Brad yelled. "We know what we saw! That wasn’t a bullshit weather satellite! We know what we saw!"

The black sedan peppered them with gravel as it sped away from the shoulder.

Agent Smith watched the humans get smaller in the rearview mirror until they disappeared before reaching back and tearing off the latex that covered his red pitted head. His long black tongue slid between his razor-sharp teeth to wet his thin lips as he tugged off his human gloves. He stretched out his scaled hands, his claws tapping the steering wheel along with the beat of the music on the radio.

Agent Jones already had his head off, and was ripping the latex covering from his hands, rubbing his gnarled green fingers together. "I hate these damn human suits! They’re hotter than Hell and not in a good way!"

"Next time we skeet shoot in the desert, we’ve gotta start the storms earlier to clear the humans off the roads. The Master will be pissed if he finds out we were out playing and humans saw us. Think they bought it?"

"What that we were trying to cover up some kind of Close Encounter?" He shrugged. "Course they did! Humans always believe in UFOs, especially when we tell them not to. We blew out their windshield, and I even stopped their watches. They don’t suspect a thing."

The demons’ maniacal laughter echoed across the barren valley as the sedan slid down the embankment and vanished into the darkness. "Stupid humans! There are no such things as aliens..."


(For Marvin - Total Recall was my Arnold S. movie, I used Somebody get me out of here and a comedy of errors too! :)