“Why are you doing this to me?”
“Hey, I’ve been super good on this drive.”
“You yelled at me about the salad dressing.”
“Because you’re not a fucking chinchilla!Of course I yelled at you about the salad dressing!I’m yelling about it again, actually!Right now!”
“I noticed!”
As soon as the shout left Tean, a flash of heat ran through him.But then Jem shot him a grin, and for some reason, Tean grinned back.Although being in a relationship with Jem for almost a year now had accustomed Tean to the conversational curveballs, there were still interactions that left him off-balance, disoriented, and frankly confused.What he’d found, though, was that those feelings—with Jem—were also strangely liberating.That was, perhaps, one of the things that attracted him so much to Jem, that sense of benevolent—or at least benign—chaos.And, with it, the sense that maybe Tean didn’t have to make everything perfect.Or at least, not always.
“It’s not actually a fish cannon.That’s just what they call it.It’s a truck that’s specially designed to transport fish, and there’s a chute they use to release the fish into the lake.It does kind of look like the fish are being shot out of it, but it’s more like a water slide than a cannon.”
Jem groaned.“How did you actually manage to make it sound more awesome?”
Tean laughed.“I’ll find out when they’re going to stock it in the spring.We’ll come watch.”Before he could stop himself, he added, “If I still have a job.”
“What do you mean?”
“Nothing.Just joking.”But when Jem drummed his thumbs on the wheel, Tean said, “Death and despair.We’ll probably end up homeless and eating cat food.Scipio will have to get a job as a security dog.”
Jem let the moment pass before he said, “That was pretty weak sauce.”
“It wasn’t weak.It was accurate.It was specific.”
“Weaksauce, babe.Weaksauce.”
“I have no idea what that means or why you keep saying it.”
“I know.”Jem’s hand found his knee and squeezed.“That’s why I love you.”
Dark washed the valley like a vast flood by the time they reached the sign outside Myton that read WELCOME TO THE UTE NATION.Around them rose the signs of change—the basin was in the middle of a transformation.For a long time, money had flowed into the Uinta Basin for coal, and mining had been the primary occupation.Now, the oil boom had come to the basin, and pumpjacks worked tirelessly under high-pressure sodium lights.
The communities, though, were the communities of people who lived there because they had to: spread out, with stretches of empty lots and a mixture of old brick and post-frame buildings with steel siding, so that everything looked like either an antique post office or an econo-lot storage unit.They passed a drive-in movie theater, the screen dark, moonlit, tattered.They passed a county health center with a flickering blue sign.The newest thing Tean saw was a Burger King that couldn’t have been more than a year old; all the lights were on, but it looked empty inside, like a glowing glass box that had ended up here by mistake.
The Maps app took them down a two-lane, where the blacktop had cracked and split after too many freezes.A stream ran alongside the road, creating a narrow strip of green in contrast to the brown and dusty olive of the high steppe they’d driven through.Several uprooted trees—salt-cedar, cottonwoods, a willow that Tean guessed had been rotten before it had finally fallen—now lay across the flow of water, creating improvised dams where the water pooled and glistened in the Subaru’s headlights.Raw scrapes showed in the soft soil of the bank.A flash flood, Tean thought.Recent.
A hundred yards later, a sign announced STRANGE LIGHTS CAMPGROUND – UTAH’S EXPERTS IN THE UNKNOWN.
Tean refused to make his point again, mostly because he knew Jem would enjoy it.
It was past dusk now, the sun gone, the horizon a red thumbprint against the gathering dark.Stars filled the sky above them.Their headlights swept across the campground as they turned in, providing a glimpse of it: a gravel parking lot, with RV hookups branching off it.Then, where the gravel didn’t reach, sandy-gray soil, clumps of sage and rabbitbrush, and red rock.The only hint of artificial color was the lengths of magenta twine staked at the perimeter of each hookup—probably necessary for dividing the space fairly, but clearly not needed now, with the campground empty.
A building with ribbed steel siding and a flat roof sat on a small rise ahead of them.Weren’t they worried about snow, Tean wondered.They drove closer, headlights bobbing as they rocked over the uneven ground, gravel swishing under their tires, and someone moved on the porch.Jem parked in front of a sign that showed a flying saucer, with the words UFO PARKING ONLY – ALL OTHERS WILL BE ABDUCTED.
“And probed,” Tean said.“And killed.”
“But probably not before being subjected to, like, vivisection.Oh shit!What if they had to vivisecteach other?” Jem paused, probably to let the brilliance of that idea sink in.“Nowthatwould be a good movie.”
Tean blinked at him.
Jem grinned as he turned off the car.
It was too dark to see whoever was on the porch, so they made their way to the steps.Another alien met them there, this one a rusting metal statue that came no higher than Tean’s waist.It was modeled on the Gray style of aliens, which Tean only knew about because of the three weeks Jem had spent bingeing a show calledRoswell.(In Tean’s opinion, surprisingly gay.In Jem’s opinion—considered at length, and aloud, over four separate dinners: not gay enough.)
“Hello?”Jem said.
“Kai,” a woman called.“You got somebody!”And then, to them, “You can come on up.”