I was tearing through the desert—southbound to Roswell in a flurry of dust and exhaust—when the black SUV appeared in my rearview again.
My eyes flicked nervously from the road to the mirror and back, trying to identify any distinctive markings on the thing—anything to assure my addled brain that I had not, in fact, seen this particular vehicle before.
There were none.
But then again… there never are.
Sweat slicked the wheel in my grip. I became suddenly very conscious of a dry lump in the back of my throat that wouldn't go away no matter how many times I swallowed.
It's the same car! It has to be!
What other explanation could there be? It must be the same SUV, the self-same ominously non-descript government-black SUV that had been dogging my trail for the past hundred miles. I could swear I'd seen it before.
Who are they? What do they want with me?
My tongue swelled up like a sponge—too big, too rough to be real. Too thick to be human. God, if it swelled anymore then how will I breathe?
Stop it! Just stoppit, Dallas! That's crazy talk. Don't talk like that—don't even think it! There's no need to fly off the handle. You must approach this thing logically. Like a professional.
I tried to calm down. I forced myself to take a few deep breaths and count off the inhales and exhales to a rhythmic beat.
Inhale. 1, 2, 3, 4… Hold it. 1, 2, 3, 4…. Exhale. 1, 2, 3, 4…
1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4,…
I started to feel better. My hands relaxed. After a few minutes, I even began to wonder what had gotten me so hopelessly wound up.
It's fine. Everything is fine. It's all fine here.
I began to feel rather silly, really. All that worrying because why? A random SUV happening to be driving down the same barren patch of highway 285 as me? That didn't mean anything. Of course, it didn't.
It's just a car, Dallas. Just another car on a road of millions.
I reached up and curled my sweaty claw around the mirror and gave it a vicious twist—all the better to see that bastard SUV coming up on my tail like a great black shark.
Holy Guacamoleshit! He's right on top of me!
My hands jumped back to the wheel and I stomped the gas, desperate to put distance between myself and that prowling, salivating beast of a vehicle, black as death and twice as hungry.
But the beast wouldn't catch me slouching. I am Dallas Alexander, after all. An honest-to-God citizen journalist. And the Good Lord above had seen fit to plant me in the driver's seat of a 2017 mustard yellow Dodge Challenger GT with the curves of a winsome county wench and the combined power of three hundred horses thundering under the hood.
The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.
I gained distance rapidly, the rumble of the engine pulsing through my fingers as the road ahead blurred into streaked paints.
Catch me if you can, you bastard.
I was coming up fast on the town limits of Vaughn, New Mexico—A burned-out neglected scrap pile of a town that looked like it had shown up early for the apocalypse. There's not much to see in Vaughn but burned-out gas stations and boarded up motels—a perfect place to hide in a pinch.
I yanked the wheel hard right onto a dirt path between two skeletal buildings. The unpaved ally curved around behind the charred remains of what might have been a gas station back in the 50s—before whatever little American Apocalypse had come blazing across the desert and blasted the town into piles of crumbling adobe and rusted metal.
I maneuvered between long-dry fuel pumps and eased into the shadow of the building's husk. I killed the engine, positioning myself for a clean getaway if needed, and waited—waited for the black beast to make its appearance.
I did not have to wait long.
The SUV roared into view. But something was amiss.
In person, out of the confines of the narrow rearview mirror, some of the menace had gone out it.
It didn't so much prowl as grumble down the highway. And rather than suited government agents at the wheel but something that looked suspiciously like a very normal, very boring, middle class American family man and his vaguely annoyed wife. It wasn't even black. Only a dark shade of un-government-like forest green.
I watched it pass in a sort of disappointed relief and then winced when the pudgy child in the back seat pressed his snout against the window, snorting huffs of hot breath that steamed the window. His eyes and nostril-holes followed me as the SUV rumbled on by and off down the road into the distance.
And then it was gone, nothing but the haze of desert dust hanging in the air to testify to its passing.
"Well, shit," I said at no one in particular.
The passenger seat creaked as my little dog roused himself from his nap. He gave a huge yawn, blinked, and looked around the car like he was confused. Then, discovering he was still blind and there was nothing to see, stood up, spun in a circle three times, laid down, and went back to sleep like he hadn't a care in the world.
And, I suppose, he didn't. Short of being blind, his life was great. No job, no responsibilities. Plenty of food, water, and cozy places to snooze. Old Slim Pickins had it made. And he didn't have to watch the news or contemplate the collapse of the global order to ruin it for himself. He didn't have to work himself up into a panic because the car behind him on the highway looked a little spooky, either. He could just eat and drink and nap and fart to his little heart's content. Just… be.
Must be nice.
I wrung my hands out and decided to light myself a smoke while I waited for the last of the adrenaline to leak out of my system. I hopped out of the driver's seat and leaned on the hood while took a nice drag and checked my phone.
Another hour and a half to Roswell and already the place was getting under my skin.
I can't really articulate where this attack of nerves had come from. It's not like I'm on any government watch lists (that I'm aware of).
But something about this trip had given me an undeniable case of the jitters. An aura of vague and ominous dread had followed me like a rain cloud all the way down from Santa Fe.
Maybe it was the THC infused gummy bears tucked into my jacket pocket like bullets just waiting to pop off. Maybe it was the vast emptiness of the American desert or the ruined towns or the burned out remnants of a mid-century civilization already halfway into the dustbin.
Maybe it's just a sign of these strange and ominous times of ours.
This is America, after all. 2025.
It is a time of strange omens and unfriendly stars.
Slim Pickins let out a snore from inside the car, and I couldn't help but laugh. Here I was, chasing lights in the sky while my blind dog dreamed of whatever blind dogs dream about. Probably chasing rabbits he couldn't see.
The wind picked up, sending a tumbleweed bouncing across the empty lot. Time to get moving.
After all, it's not polite to keep the aliens waiting.
