Terrestrial Alien ✔

Chapter 58: The Stranger

Joshua

As much as I still don't want to reach our destination, a curious, resigned part of me was just ready for it to just come already. This waiting is killing me.

It isn't until I see the sign announcing our crossing over into New Mexico that I grasp just how far we've traveled. Both Sundo and I sit in stunned silence as it rolls past.

"We haven't really crossed into New Mexico, have we?" Sundo leans over to murmur, his eyes wide.

"That's what the sign said," I reply, instilled with just as much disbelief.

Looking at his reaction, the way he stares at the window with even more rapt attention than he had before, I realise he's never left Colorado before. This thought as sadness unfurling in me like an icy flower. Why couldn't this have been a more special occasion for him? I would have wished for this moment to come any other way, to have been able to see that excitement on his face without the tinge of anxiety that is unavoidable here.

I haven't really left the state before myself, though I'm far less enamoured with the change in location. The plateau looks largely the same on this side of the border as it did over there: sandy and barren, the perfect place to hide bodies that you want to never be found.

We keep driving, and the landscape is uncannily the same, as though we haven't been traveling for hours. In fact, the only noticeable difference between here and the other side of the CO-NM line is that we're now one step closer to whatever mysterious lair Perkins and Lynch are taking us to.

I notice the FBI agents casting us glances from the front, and I want to ask them again how much longer we have, but I don't. I already know it'd be a wasted effort.

Staring out the window, I get to watch the blue Archuleta mountains rise up in the distance as we shoot through the desert area. That's yet another useless name my 7th-grade geography class pounded into me... I never thought I'd be recalling it at a time like this, when I'm actually seeing the mountains in person.

A crooked green road sign rises in the distance as well, announcing that the city of Dulce is only a few miles away.

I start and turn as I feel Sundo tap my shoulder. Tilting his head to one side, his ear turned towards the partition, he emphatically darts his eyes to the front, then back to me. Perkins and Lynch look just as they had before, but beneath the burble of the radio, they're talking. Whatever they're saying, it was enough to catch Sundo's attention.

I strain my hearing to catch their words, at least, as much as I can without being obvious.

"...we going to tell them?" Perkins mutters without turning his face from the road.

Lynch sighs, settling back into her seat just a little more. "I don't care, Arthur... Go ahead."

A strange tumbling trepidation overtakes me. Tell us what? I grip the edge of my seat, darting a glance to Sundo, who looks pensive and attentive.

"Hey, kid, have you ever heard of Dulce, New Mexico?" Perkins sits up to meet my gaze in the rearview mirror, and he doesn't seem the least bit surprised to find I'm already watching him.

"No..?"

I warily glance back to the sign we just passed. Even Sundo looks skeptical, and if this well-read alien hasn't heard of the place... It must really be obscure.

Perkins laughs a bit at my response, something sparkling in his eye.

"Well, lucky you!" He drums his fingers over the wheel as if in dance. "You'd be surprised the kind of thing people think go on in this town..."