“Well, this looks as good as any,” Maria said turning off the car, basking them in silence and darkness.

“It’s spooky out here,” Liz whispered.

“Come on, don’t be such a wuss. We can go up the hill and camp out on top where we will be able to see all around us.” Maria finished and opened the car door to the sound of crickets and a distant coyote.

Slowly, the group became animated and started gathering the contents of the trunk into their arms.

Twenty minutes later, they had finished spreading out sleeping bags, setting up the boom-box, lighting the gas lamp, and were feeling more comfortable in their surroundings.

***

“Is it still following us?” Max asked anxiously.

“I don’t see it… park behind this hill,” Michael replied turning around again.

Quickly, Max pulled over behind tall shrubs and a boulder. They sat in silence, each lost in their own thoughts.

***

“Hey Alex, grab me another wine cooler while you're up,” Maria requested. She was sitting on the ground while Jessi put little rubber bands in Maria's hair. It fell past her chin, but was still relatively short - barely reaching the middle of her neck. The result was it standing on end and jutting out in different directions.

Liz and Kyle were slow dancing to a Savage Garden song while a slightly tipsy Eric sang along and pranced around with an unwillingly Alex.

***

“Look! There it is!” Isabel exclaimed, pointing to the right where two small headlights were bobbing in the distance.

“It’s a good two miles away. Let’s go,” Max decided.

He started the engine and carefully drove into the black of night.

“Wait!” Michael hissed from the back seat.

“What?” Max asked, startled.

“Stop the car.” Max complied with Michael’s request and turned, looking at him curiously.

“What is it, Michael?” Isabel sounded concerned.

“I'm not sure… go.”

“What?”

“Go ahead. Go. It was just a weird feeling, that’s all. It’s gone now.”

His siblings stared at him for a couple of beats before returning to their prior positions.

***

“That one,” Alex slurred to Maria, pointing at the sky. “Is called the Big… Cup-thingy.” He giggled.

Maria’s mind slowly comprehended what he had said and she laughed too. “It’s call the Big DIPPER.” She cuddled closer to him, feeling a slight chill.

“Oh yeah. Oh, and see those three bright stars over there?”

“Where?”

Alex turned his head towards her and pointed again.

“Alex, there’s only ONE star there… you're drunk!”

“Not uh! Well, maybe a little bit… aren’t you?”

“I'm not sure.” She laughed again.

***

A minute later, Michael felt the same urging. “Turn right.”

“What?”

“Turn right. Head that way.”

“But that’s where the patrol went.”

“Just do it, Max.”

***

Still in Alex’s arms, Maria watched her friends having fun. Well, she watched Jessi and Eric having fun. She tried to avoid looking at Liz and Kyle because they were getting pretty hot and heavy in a sleeping bag.

“Hey, Maria,” Eric called from his position in Jessi’s arms as they danced.

“Yeah?”

“Thanks for bringing us here. I think that this is the first time that I have felt free of the scrutiny of the town. I'm having a blast. Thank you.”

Maria smiled to herself.

***

The jeep carrying the three aliens moved swiftly through the desert, catching up with the patrol truck ahead of them.

“What kind of feeling is this, Michael?”

“I'm not sure. I just I need to be over there.” He pointed ahead of them. He tried to ignore the looks that Max and Isabel were sharing and concentrate on this spine-tingling need that was drawing him to it.

“Look!” Isabel yelped, and pointed straight ahead to a tall rock formation with light wafting out of the top.

Max stopped the jeep, once again, and faced Michael. “Is that where we’re going?”

“I'm not sure…”

***

The teens had now finished almost all the alcohol in the ice chest and were feeling pretty good with themselves. They were all in a circle attempting a rousing game of spin the bottle.

“Who goes first?” Alex asked.

Jessi grabbed the beer bottle out of his hands and took it upon herself to start. It spun on it’s slightly sloped surface and landed pointing at Eric.

“Give daddy some sugar,” Eric crooned to Jessi’s disgust.

She leaned over and pecked him quickly then passed the bottle to Maria on her right. Maria spun it and watched it land again on Eric.

Sighing, she, too, kissed her friend, who promptly tried to slip her the tongue.

“Eww!! Keep your tongue to yourself!” She squealed and passed it to Kyle, who was next.

He spun it, keeping his eyes on Liz. Again, it landed on Eric.

Confused by all the laughing, Kyle looked down at the bottle. “Not uh, man. No way.”

***

The patrol truck was approximately a half of a mile ahead of them when it came to a stop at the base of the rock formation, which the light was originating from.

“What’s going on?” he asked.

“Go around the side, over there,” Michael directed.

***

“Do you hear something?” Liz asked, her head in Kyle’s lap as he stroked her hair.

Maria leaned over and turned off the stereo. They all sat quietly and then heard the motor of a vehicle approaching.

“Shit!” someone exclaimed.

“What do we do?” Liz asked.

Maria looked at her friends’ faces and knew she was the one responsible if they got in trouble. “It’s Travis. It’s got to be. He’s the only one on patrol tonight…. I'll go talk to him.” She went to stand up and suddenly felt unsure of her balance. The alcohol was still taking affect and she felt a little woozy.

***

Max continued to drive around the side until he saw the truck’s engine shut off. He quickly shut his off too, to avoid detection.

Michael looked around and tried to figure out why he was called here. They were about forty feet away from the base of the rock mound and a little over a hundred feet from the patrol truck.

He hopped out of the jeep and stared up at the ledge above him. “Stay here. I’ll be right back.”

“What are you doing?”

“I'm not sure, but I need to be there,” he said, nodding towards the ledge.

***

Travis was more nervous than he had ever been in his entire life. ‘No, not nervous,’ he corrected himself. ‘Terrified is more like it.’ He reached down and picked up the walkie-talkie. He couldn’t believe that he had to deal with a probable encounter his second time patrolling.

“This is Patrol Grey reporting to Base. Patrol Grey to Base.” He waited impatiently for a response.

“Go ahead Patrol Grey. What is your current status?” The voice was faint and broken up.

“I am at 948 grid…” he checked his map to make sure. “Grid G.”

“Copy that.”

“I have a code US7 and I request backup.”

“US7, copy that. Patrol backup is on its way. Please be advised to approach with extreme caution.”

Travis looked out the windshield and felt his overactive imagination take over. He had this sinking feeling that something terrible was going to happen tonight.

He could just picture that this was some sort of alien ambush and they planned on eating him for dinner.

Or maybe the light was beacon for new ships to follow and he would get trapped in the middle of hundreds of alien spacecrafts.

Shaking his head to relieve himself of his torment, he pulled his gun out of its holster.

***

Maria finally found the ground and began wobbling her way to the edge of the rock so she could see down. Six feet away from the ledge, her foot slipped into a crevice and she fell, scrapping her knee.

“You okay, Ria?” Kyle asked as he started to get up.

“Yeah, I'm fine. Don’t worry about it.”

***

Michael scaled up another large boulder and looked up. He saw a slim figure twelve feet above him on the ground. The light silhouetted it so he couldn’t make out exactly who or what it was. Was it one of them? Was it a human?

The figure turned and he could tell she was female. As she stood up, the light illuminated her face and Michael almost fell over backwards as he recognized her.

***

Travis knew that it was now or never. He stepped out of the car and cleared his throat, hoping that his voice didn’t squeak when he spoke.

“Hello up there. This is the United States Army. Identify yourselves.”

***

Maria shot her head up the second that she heard his voice.

‘Thank God!’ she thought. Though she appeared confident to her friends earlier, she wasn’t positive that he was the only patroller tonight.

She took a deep breath and prepared to be yelled at as she stepped to the edge and looked down at her boyfriend.

***

Michael peeled his eyes off of the young waitress to look down at the army goon below. What was going on? Since when did humans bust other humans here? He wasn’t sure what was going on but his tingling feeling was increasing with each passing moment.

***

Travis almost puked the moment he saw the figure appear at the edge. He couldn’t see much of anything because of the light behind it, but he did see the weird sprouts all over its head.

His hands were shaking. “Don’t move. Put your hands in the air where I can see them.”

***

Maria looked down at her boyfriend in amusement. She could tell from here that he was scared witless. Boy, was she gonna tease him about this later! Raising her hands slightly, she cautiously turned to Kyle.

“Kyle,” she whispered. “Bring the lamp over. He can't see who I am.”

Kyle picked up the lamp and stood up.

***

Michael heard every word that she said and cursed. If they bring the light over then it would illuminate the shadow that he was hiding in. That was the last thing that he needed. He started to move closer to the rock face.

***

Travis didn’t know what was happening. The only thing he was aware of was that the light was moving towards the figure. His heart was pounding so hard that he was sure it would explode. Nervously, he cocked his gun and aimed it at the approaching light.

‘What was the light?’ he thought. Was it a laser? A death ray?

He was concentrating so hard on the light that he almost didn’t hear the falling rocks. It came from the side of the hill.

“It’s an ambush,” he whispered, realizing that the figure was probably only a distraction.

***

Kyle couldn’t see straight at all. The world kept pitching from one side to the other. He tried to concentrate solely on his sister ahead of him.

Just as he was starting to feel less dizzy, he tripped.

***

Travis was frozen. He didn’t know what to do. He made up his mind to turn around and go back into the truck and wait there for the backup when he heard a sharp thud and a crash come from above him.