Liam Robinson
“If we travel out here long enough, we’re bound to find one. I guarantee it.” I’ve been on the road for a few weeks now, wrapped tightly with my new best friends in a red ‘93 Ford Aerostar van crossing every inch in the state of Arizona. Out the window we watch the dim lights from the suburbs fade into patches of Ponderosa pines that morph into endless stretches of dying grass. We’ve travelled over the nervous system circuit of highway that takes us from the titanic red pillars of Monument Valley that thrust into the sky, to the fields of cacti crucifixes by the Mexican border, and every trailer trash, rancher style house, church and American flag filled town in between. There is no destination for our travels, but there is a mission, spurred by our leader’s words. We are chasing aliens.
***
A few months ago I was working a graveyard shift at the Jack-in-the-Box that had been my prison since I’d graduated from high school three years ago. I’d been getting headaches for a while and had to start keeping Tylenol pills loose in my back pocket during shifts. Often I would be on my phone, scrolling through anything that would get my mind off the greasy walls and buzzing lights of the so-called ‘kitchen.’ On this night I was browsing Reddit, looking at some of my favourite subreddits, ones that showcased digital art of imaginary cities and futuristic life. And by chance through one of the comments, I was led to the subreddit for UFOs. With one hand at the fryer I kept scrolling and eventually landed on r/AlienAbduction, where I found the most astonishing story I had ever read.
Movies and TV had been my only exposure to extraterrestrials, and they were filled with the same old tale of flying saucers and grey aliens that probe, prod, and pull you apart on a surgical table. But what I read was completely different. Whoever this person was, they told of an incredible experience. Aboard a colossal spaceship, their body was melted down into a soft pool. Their consciousness remained intact as their liquid form was poured into a large bowl, where it mixed and swam with the liquid forms of millions of other people. They wrote that as their mind began to dissolve into the fluid, they felt an extraordinary connection with all of mankind, until they were poured down a narrow metal drain and woke up shivering and bleeding from both ears on the side of the highway.
Over the next few weeks I continuously checked back in on the alien abduction subreddit. The user whose story had captivated me so much often updated the community about their efforts to uncover the nature of their abduction. Their experience was so unique that even other, more seasoned members of the community had no answers. Eventually, I decided to message this person and explain my fascination with their story. His name was Marcus, and he believed he had been scouted by a hyper-intelligent race of aliens known as “Arcturians.”
“Well Alex,” he told me over the phone before we met, “these beings are the rare type of aliens who are willing, in fact desire, to assist humans in achieving a higher level of consciousness. I believe they are out there, and I believe that it’s possible to prompt an abduction.”
Marcus said that he was trying to organize a group of people who were also interested in the idea of being “saved”, as he put it, by these Arcturians. We would drive through Arizona, because the state was situated in the same place as an inter-dimensional superhighway that Arcturian ships would occasionally blip in and out of. The more time someone spent in the area, the higher their odds of contacting an alien would be. He was asking me to join him.
It was all so much to take in. Trapped in a small town since birth, I was working a shit job because I was too dumb to do anything better. Every day melted together, and I had no clue what I wanted to make of my life. But dropping everything to rumble around the desert with
strangers on the slim chance we may find salvation was as insane of an idea there could be. Then, a couple of nights after Marcus sent his offer, I was walking home from work way past midnight and I started hearing whispers in my ear. They were too jumbled for me to understand what they were saying and when I turned around nothing was there. I was completely alone on the sidewalk. I stuck my fingers into my ear, but the whispering persisted. It seemed like they were coming from inside my skull. The next day the whispers flew around my mind. I didn’t understand what was happening to me. I didn’t want to be crazy, I had seen when people lost their minds, and I couldn’t let that happen to me. But maybe the Arcturians could help. I sent Marcus a message.
“I’m in.”
***
I waited anxiously one morning in September with a duffel bag packed with clothes and toiletries lying at my feet. I heard Marcus’ van roll in front of the house on East Mesquite St. that I rented a place in.
“Alex, hi,” he called. “Welcome aboard!”
Marcus had a rusted brown full goatee, and he was a bit chubby, but his long sleeve maroon shirt still looked too large. He wore a small pair of rectangular glasses that pressed against his face. The ripped up old vinyl seating was pushing out padding foam, and there was a pile of CDs jammed below the radio.
“Alex, this is Sam,” he said, gesturing to the backseat.
There I saw a girl with streaks of dyed purple hair and a copy of The Bell Jar resting face down on her thigh. She was wearing a jean vest with the sleeves cut off and an assortment of pins over the left pocket, one of which displayed the lesbian flag. Marcus explained that he picked her up yesterday in Kingman, a generously sized city about an hour from the border with Nevada. She carried a purse full of turquoise crystals, string, and beads.
“I make jewelry and sell it when I can,” she said.
“How old are you?” I asked.
She squinted at me suspiciously. “17. Why does it matter?”
“ I don’t know. You look really young. Isn’t school on right now?”
“I dropped out. Kingman, uh, wasn’t very accepting. I didn’t need to be there anymore.” Marcus told us that we had to pick up the last member of our new group, a man named Lucas who lived over in Chandler. He was a well-built man in his mid to late twenties, a frame that directly contrasted my scrawny figure. In fact, he looked the opposite of who I would expect to join a group of people so invested in alien activities. The rest of us seemed like outcasts, or some form of weirdo, but Lucas looked like a jock.
We drove south under the searing Arizona sun and into the small town of Ajo where we stopped for lunch at an unassuming place called “Agave Grill.” I talked to Lucas over a lunch of fried black bean quesadillas with searing hot green chile sauce, and he told me that he used to play college football at Arizona State. “Wide receiver,” he said, showing me a Sun Devil logo tattooed on his shoulder.
“Tore my right ACL, junior year. I got surgery, but it didn’t help much,” he told me. He finished his degree in Communications and was working a cushy office job in Phoenix, but he said that he hadn’t been happy since his injury.
“Football was all I had. I know that sounds dumb, but I really loved the game. I gave my life to it, and then suddenly I couldn’t play anymore. I got a bit better, but I still felt like something was missing. I tried finding Jesus, but he wasn’t there.”
Just like me, Lucas found Marcus’ story on Reddit and was captivated by its uniqueness. The life-changing potential of communicating with Arcturians is what spurred him to join.
***
For the next couple weeks, we zipped across the state in every direction. We camped in the Apache forest, lit a big fire and smoked sausages over it. When the flame snuffed out, our clothes stunk with smoke and we stared into the great eye of the universe and at the millions of stars. When we did I knew for certain that some transcendent beings were out there. The van carried us along the US. 89 parallel with the Colorado River, where the immense walls of sunset painted rocks contracted back and forth from the highway like deep breaths. In between every moment of natural beauty we scraped together gas money from Sam’s jewelry sales in various towns. Picking fruit from local orchards, we spilled watermelon juice all over the grey carpet seats. We traded turns at the wheel, through all hours of the day, nowhere nearer to a UFO than when we started.
And boy, was it wearing on us. Even on Marcus, who had been so determined throughout or constant travelling, I could see the optimism fading. In fact, about a week ago one of the back tires on the van tore open, and when Lucas was trying to attach the spare he got into an argument with Marcus about how tight the wheel needed to be screwed in, and the two almost threw punches. The lustre of the road trip was on its last coat.
It was night as we drove north along the AZ-377. I’ve never seen a road so lonely. We were too far from any towns and too poor to pay for a motel room anyway, so Marcus just stopped the van in the dirt right off the highway. Outside I found a rogue rock and leaned against it, staring up at the sky. Soon afterwards Sam followed me and sat down.
“Do you wanna smoke?” she asked.
“I haven’t in months,” I said.
“I hope I’m not breaking your sobriety,” she said while lifting her purse onto her lap. “No, it’s kinda funny actually. A month or so before we left I started getting really bad headaches and like, whispers if that makes sense. Anyhow I got really paranoid about the drug lectures from high school and started thinking that maybe pot had ruined my brain.”
“Did it?” Sam asked.
“I’m still not sure.”
She fished out a small blue lighter and lit the joint. When she passed it to me I noticed Lucas walking over to us.
“Wanna smoke with us?” Sam asked.
“I don’t know. I’ve never done it before,” he replied.
“Really? Never in college?” She asked.
“Hell no. If I got caught with this stuff back when I played they would’ve taken me out back and shot me. And I never bothered after that.”
“Well, now’s the chance if you’d like.”
“Y’know what I think I would.” Lucas replied.
I passed it over and guided his motions.
“Woah this is weird. I can, like, taste the smoke. Cool.” he exclaimed,
“Uh-huh.” said Sam.
We sat in silence while I grabbed a fragment from a tumbleweed and picked it into pieces. After passing it around again Sam snuffed out the flame from the joint using the dirt and tossed it back into her purse. Then Lucas spoke up.
“Do you guys really think we’re gonna find anything?”
“I sure hope so,” I said.
“Well yeah, obviously. But, I’m starting to lose faith, to be honest.”
“I think it’s more likely that they’ll find us.” I replied.
Marcus was standing right next to us, his hands in his pockets, staring straight ahead into the desert.
“That’s what we’re doing here,” he continued, “We’re not hunters but explorers. We must embrace them if we truly hope to receive their power.”
Marcus stood there for a minute longer as we listened to the rhythm of the crickets’ song, and then he walked back towards the van.
***
“Did you know that I used to be married?”
It was well past midnight as we drove west along Route 66 towards Flagstaff, where we planned on stopping to try and collect some more money. Outside, the endless stretch of red dirt and dying shrubs was covered by the pitch black blanket that swallowed up the desert. Marcus had one of his Neil Young CDs playing while he drove, and I lounged in shotgun with one hand plastered to the inside of a Doritos bag. I had almost drifted into sleep when Marcus’ words shook me.
“You were?” I asked.
“For about six years. She worked as a nurse back in Yuma. It wasn’t an exciting marriage, and like most couples, we…had our differences. But we worked things out all right.”
I glanced behind me but Sam and Lucas had dozed off.
“But after my abduction,” Marcus continued, “she saw me differently. Well frankly, she didn’t believe me. Do you know what that’s like? To go through the most incredible and transcendent experience, only for your own wife to think you’ve gone insane.”
He paused, and we waited in silence for a moment. I didn’t know what to say.
“That was the last straw that put me on the road. The Arcturians gave me a taste of life’s limitless potential, how could I possibly ignore that? I had to do it. It was calling me.”
***
We arrived in Flagstaff early in the morning and moseyed the van downtown. A farmer’s market had sprung up, so Marcus slid the van to the end of the street and we set up a table for Sam to display her jewelry. Lucas and I were sent off to gather food. We began foraging around Flagstaff and eventually wandered into a residential neighbourhood filled with citrus trees. Lucas volleyed me up a sand coloured wall and I leaned into someone’s backyard and picked as many oranges as I could fit into the makeshift basket of my shirt. When we made it back to the van Sam was conducting a tarot card reading with a blonde woman who looked about my age.
“... I think you have the answers inside of you already. Follow the moon and you will surely resolve your issues,” Sam said, as the woman dabbed at her eyes before walking away.
“What was her story?” Lucas asked.
“I don’t know, boyfriend troubles or something. I wasn’t paying much attention.” “How much money did you get?” I asked.
“Not much. Prolly enough for another tank of gas. The crowd’s dying out now. Oooh, you got oranges! Gimme!” she said.
***
That night we drove east on Old Route 66. There was nothing to say to each other, and the desert was empty and dark. I tried falling asleep in the backseat. I drifted off into my earliest memory of my dad. He’s out in the backyard, while I peek out from behind my mother’s leg, my arms wrapped tightly around her thigh. My dad has his arms raised to the sky and he’s shouting a bunch of things I don’t understand. I look up at my mom, and she kisses my forehead and whispers to me that it’ll be okay.
I must have been out for a few hours when I heard Sam yell Marcus’ name. My eyes shot open. She was frantically shaking Marcus, statue still with his hands gripping the wheel.
“What’s happening?” I asked.
“He just went catatonic. We were driving along perfectly normal, when suddenly his eyes bulged open and he froze,” said Sam.
I unbuckled and leaned forward into the front.
“Should we stop the van?” “I can’t move his body!” cried Sam.
I turned back to Lucas. “Help me move him,” I said
“Oh my God!!”
I swung around and saw Sam tucking herself against the door. Marcus’ eyes had rolled back into his head, and the naked whites of his eyes started pulsing. Suddenly the van veered off the road and skidded onto the dirt. The three of us screamed as we rattled around the van. Marcus flung open the door and stumbled out into the night.
“Where the fuck is he going?! Marcus! MARCUS!!” Lucas screamed.
We chased after him, and I tried to grab Marcus and hold him still, but he just pushed me aside and kept marching forward. Finally he stopped and tilted his head up at the sky. I looked up too. The stars blinked and suddenly the outline of a mammoth ship appeared, dominating the darkness. A radiating green beam of light shot down and surrounded Marcus, and he began to levitate, his body limp. We tried to leap and grab him down, to no avail. Then, when he was about 20 feet in the air, he froze.
As we stared up I felt a slicing pain penetrate my mind, and I watched Lucas crumple to the ground. I tried to lift my arms but my body was completely immobile; my eyes slowly expanded just like Marcus’ did. They rolled back into my skull like a gear shifting into place. I felt my consciousness depart my body, and I was suddenly gazing into the face of a silvery blue alien. Its face was devoid of any features other than two solid black eyes. The alien made no movements and simply stared ahead. From my forehead a channel of energy manifested, connecting both of our heads. It began to speak, but there were no words or vocals. Rather, their message appeared in my mind as if I had thought it myself.
Marcus has been chosen to join us. Acceptance into our ways is only for the most dedicated of souls. Marcus is one.
I tried to manage a response, and the thoughts were quickly siphoned from my brain and digested by the Arcturian in front of me.
We have always been here, watching you. All of you. For Marcus, it was time. For you, Sam, and Lucas, your time will come. We will be waiting.
My mind slipped back into my twisted body that stretched out across the dirt. Beyond me I saw Sam and Lucas’, their shapes illuminated only by the faint beam of the van’s headlights. I looked up at the stars and watched the giant face of the ship blink out of sight.
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