There was a bed and there was a pull-out couch. Though he had been promised the real deal, Sam graciously, silently volunteered himself for the couch. Hillary wasn’t exaggerating when she told him he wasn’t missing much: the bed was just as lumpy and had the same odor as the couch. The only thing it had going for it was the best damn pillows Hillary had ever laid her head on. This she didn’t share with Sam.

The woman working the front desk, Lilly, knew nothing about aliens or Project Bluebook. Then again, she was no older than twenty; why should some harebrained story from the last century interest her? She was only working there for the summer: her parents had bought the motel sight unseen a few months prior and, while on summer break from college back in Oregon, the front desk promised to be easy work.

“No,” she laughed with the confidence of youth that Hillary sorely missed, “my parents absolutely do not know anything about aliens being here. No more than I do. Nor would they care. This place? It’s just another tax write-off. They’ll hold onto it for a few years until their accountant sobers up enough to remember to move it off the books. And so the Chandy real estate empire rolls on.”

“No one else has, I don’t know, been around asking about aliens or UFOs?” Sam couldn’t hide the unease in his voice, but Lilly seemed unperturbed.

“As I said, this isn’t my full-time gig. I’m only here to keep the cobwebs company. And, from what my parents tell me, there’s pretty much a revolving door when it comes to manning the front desk. I guess complete, dispiriting loneliness in the middle of nowhere isn’t for everybody.”

Hillary couldn’t figure out the Lillys of the world. She didn’t know where the line was between world-weary cynicism and hard-luck honesty. The Nirvana shirt, for instance; how could someone Lilly’s age even know who Nirvana was? Kurt Cobain had been dead fifteen years before Lilly had even been born. And the choker necklace, circa 1996 Piercing Pagoda at the Westmount Mall -- what was that about?

“I guess we shouldn’t be expecting too much by way of neighbors.”

“There’s Marvin and Marty in Room 7. They pretty much live here. Technically, there’s something in the zoning that forbids it, but the sheriff says it's better than having them sleep out of their cars. They won’t bother you, anyway. Other than that? I wouldn’t count on a line at the ice machine.”

Hillary smiled. Try as she might, she couldn’t dislike Lilly. It wasn’t her fault that she was young.

“Oh, and on that note, the ice machine’s broken. Actually, does it count as broken if it’s never really worked? At least, I don’t think it’s ever worked. I think it was, like a prop or something.”

Thankfully for Sam and Hillary, the vending machine was still operational. Their big night in the motel was accompanied by a feast of cheese curls, caramel candy, and cold Pop-Tarts. At least they didn’t have to worry about having to tip their waiter.

“You did something brave back there, Sam.”

He raised his eyebrows. He was sitting up on the couch and she was sitting up in bed but the room was small enough that he could see her eyes. Still, he couldn’t tell if she was being honest or pulling his leg. He certainly hadn’t remembered being brave.

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah, I’m serious. Getting us out of that situation last night. Driving the whole night through. Keeping your head on straight.”

“I don’t know if it was bravery or instincts. I just kept my foot on the gas pedal and didn’t look back in the rearview mirror once. Nothing I learned in Driver’s Ed, either.”

The sun was nearing the end of its workday, much to the delight of the aging, whining air conditioner.

“Learn to take a compliment, Sam. They come few and far between.”

They turned on the TV though neither was interested in watching it. Still, it was pleasant background noise. It helped, maybe, to have other voices in the room to keep them company. Whether it was a basketball game, the shopping network, or a rodeo, they didn’t know. Whatever it was, it helped to fill the gaps and silences between them, wide as they were.

“No one’s missing you back in Racine?”

After the divorce, they’d sold the condo in Temecula and split the money left over from paying off the mortgage between them. He used it to shack up with a bunch of other Gentleman Giant buffoons out on a ranch in Colorado. It was something like a cult and something like a commune; Hillary purposely didn’t pry. She, by comparison, had moved back to Wisconsin and used her share of the money to help retrofit her dad’s house with a ramp for his wheelchair. She took a bedroom on the second floor so that he didn’t have to maneuver up the stairs. They lived like that until she put him into hospice care.

“Oh, I don’t know. I’d like to think that they’re mourning the loss of their reliable scratch-off ticket buyer at the Swift Trip.”

“So that’s how you paid for the van, then?”

“You’re not going to quit on that, are you?”

He wouldn’t; that was true. He couldn’t let it rest. Something seemed off about it and he hadn’t yet accepted the fact that her business was no longer his by default too.

“Not until I get an answer that makes sense.”

“You’re going to be waiting a long time, Sam Spiezio. Long after all your moist chocolate chip cookies are gone.”

This banter was something of a safe zone. Better to inhabit these parts than the two no-man’s-lands that faced them: the aliens from the night before and the story of their collapse. They were too tired, too weary to do battle again that night. In time, whether they liked it or not, they would come back to both topics. And they’d both trade barbs. That much was certain. But for a while, for a little while at least, there was no small comfort in talking about nothing.

Sam was the first to fall asleep. He always had been. Hillary dozed off not long thereafter, though she had meant to say one last thing to Sam before she slipped away. She had meant to turn the TV off, too, but the allure of letting her eyes close was too strong. When she started back awake some unknown time later, she thought at first it was noise from the TV that had woken her. After finding the remote and figuring out the buttons, though, the noise only grew louder.

Chatter. Laughter. That unmistakable sound of a can of beer being popped open.

Sam was still asleep. He had worked hard for this rest. It almost made Hillary feel bad waking him.

“Sam! Sam!”

Why was she whispering? With all the noise outside, she could barely hear herself. No chance Sam could hear her at all, even if he weren’t a heavy sleeper.

“Do you hear that Sam? Turtle? Something’s going on out there,” she said a little louder this time. Sam still didn’t budge. Short of a gong or a marching band, waking him wouldn’t be easy. Sam was having one of those dreams that feel richer, brighter, and more real than reality. One moment he was late for his high school graduation; the next, he had forgotten to turn off the stove before heading out for a month of touring. Now and then, he’d twitch like a dog chasing after an imaginary rabbit.

Hillary sighed. Sam was a lost cause.

With any number of curses directed under her breath at her no-good, half-baked ex-husband, Hillary threw on some clothes and scurried out of the room.

Coming out of the dark of Room #15, Hillary hadn’t expected to need her eyes to adjust. It was, after all, the dead of night and it was, after all, the dead of Swell, Nevada. Yet, it was bright. There were lights. She had to squint and felt not unlike she was sitting at the dentist’s office, looking up in the middle of an extraction.

“Hey there, darlin’”

As shapes and colors began to coalesce and unblur before her eyes, Hillary saw the smiling face of a woman, probably her own age, a can of beer in her outstretched hand as an offering of sorts.

“Uh, hi.”

A man sidled up and put his arm around the woman’s shoulder. It dawned on Hillary that the light was coming from Tiki torches that had been assembled along the building’s railing. This was an accouterment she hadn’t remembered seeing earlier in the day.

“We didn’t wake you, did we?”

He was smiling, too, and in the same all-too-earnest, more-than-a-little-unnerving kind of way. It reached almost from ear to ear, like the ribbon at a finish line. He had a push broom-thick black mustache and coke-bottle glasses. “We’re mighty sorry. Hopefully, a can of suds can make it up to you?”

“Oh. Yeah, thanks,” Hillary took the can and tipped it slightly in appreciation. She was well past her drinking-after-midnight stage and was especially disinclined to accept a drink from a bunch of strangers at a roadside motel, but there was nothing criminal about holding the darned can. Especially from these two. With her sundress and his pleated pants -- and his massive smile -- this pair was so sweet they practically sweated out saccharine.

Whoever they were.

“You aren’t, uh, Marvin and Marty, are you?”

They both laughed, though the woman quickly veiled her mouth with her powder-white hand.

“Gosh no,” the man said. “At least I don’t think so. Are you Marvin, dear?”

The woman gently swatted him.

“You’re a monster, Cal. Let’s not have too much fun at her expense. We have already inconvenienced her enough with our little get-together. We should be apologizing, not antagonizing her.”

“Oh, no, no it’s fine.”

“The name’s Marla, and this, as I said, is Cal. Calvin when I’m fed up with him. Mr. DePew when he’s had a few too many drinks and I’m threatening him with divorce.”

Hillary feigned a smile of her own, but she was distracted. It wasn’t just Cal and Marla. Between the first and second floors, she counted at least ten adults chummily mingling and gabbing, all very nonchalantly, as if this was something they had done before. Plus, a gaggle of children was running in the dark of the parking lot, playing what was certainly a very dangerous game of tag.

And, without fail, each and every one of them had come straight out of central casting for Leave it to Beaver. For the women, it was starchy ankle-length dresses paired with clunky shoes and oversized brooches. Meanwhile, more than one of the guys had a genuine fedora, worn unironically, and all of them seemed to have a sport coat -- if not on, then draped over their arms.

“It’s just so rare that we all get back together again. I suppose we couldn’t help but make a little noise.”

Hillary slowly let her eyes drift back to Marla.

“So, this is like a reunion, then? And you’re staying at the Mas Suenos? I’m surprised the girl, I mean, Lilly, at the front desk, didn’t mention anything about a reunion.”

Cal and Marla shared a conspiratorial look between them.

“We-ll,” Cal stretched the syllable out like a piece of spaghetti,” I wouldn’t call it a reunion. Nothing so formal as that. Let’s just call it old friends reminiscing about a time long gone.”

“You know,” Marla cut in,” it’s something we try our hardest to do every year, but it is so difficult to get the whole gang together. This year it was Audrey Washburn who couldn’t make it.”

Cal clucked his tongue.

“Can barely pull Audrey away from the gamma-ray lobotomoscope these days, can you? Anyway, I’m just glad the Figuerdos were able to make it this year. Say, you haven’t had a sip of your drink yet. Don’t tell me you aren’t an Argot’s Ale gal?”

Hillary almost sipped her drink out of politeness -- not because she was an Argot’s Ale gal -- but, somewhere between gamma-ray lobotomoscope and Cal finally giving it a rest, he had said something that had piqued her interest.

“Did you say the Figuerdos? As in Mr. & Mrs. Figuerdo of West Hempstead, New York?”

Though they were already bright, both Cal and Marla’s faces managed to brighten even further. It was like looking at the sun through a telescope.

“The very same! Well, formerly of West Hempstead.”

“Now, shoot, now where do they live again? Amarok 7? Or is it Amorak 9?”

“I think it was Amorak 9, but then they found a cheaper place with a bigger yard in the Cisin Belt.”

Cal snapped his fingers.

“That’s right, that’s right, that’s right! They say the schools are better there, too, don’t they? More radiation. Less gravity. Higher taxes, too. But people will do anything to get in a better district, won’t they? You don’t happen to know Tony and Maria, do you? They're just downstairs if you’d want to catch up.”

Hillary stood frozen in place. She didn’t know what to do, what to say or what to think.

Cal, oblivious to the moment Hillary was having, idly snapped his fingers a few more times.

“Say, this is fun. I suppose play-acting having bones again isn’t so bad once you get used to it.”

“I told you, Mr. DePew.”

“That’s right,” Cal conceded, “I suppose I owe you a Coke, Mrs. DePew. See, we’re just getting used to having these old bodies again and boy is it a hoot!”

Hillary knew the sensible thing to do would be to slip back into her room, grab her cell phone, and, regardless of what degree of assault it took, wake up Sam. That way she would have a witness. She would have photos and videos. Because no one would believe the word of a woman who just lost her dad and her job not long after divorcing her husband and was now crisscrossing the country in a van in search of extraterrestrials. Even she wouldn’t trust herself.

If she could just slip away for a moment, trust wouldn’t be a problem. She would have proof that aliens were not just real but here, on Earth, and wearing decidedly dated clothing, too. No scary guns, no creepy barns. Five seconds, no more -- was that really asking too much?

Except, of course, that five seconds was absolutely enough time for the whole group of them to disappear. They were, after all, aliens. Chatty aliens, but aliens just the same; all bets are off when you’re dealing with beings capable of advanced space travel. Five seconds would be enough time to make a complete fool of herself in front of a very groggy, rudely awakened Sam. Fool at best, she realized. Sam might think she was a lunatic, that she had finally lost it, that it was time to call off this jaunt altogether.

She briefly considered kindly asking the aliens to stick around while she just stepped out for a moment. Then again, it wasn’t inconceivable that they would object to having their faces plastered all over the Internet and that they might react poorly to having Sam slack-jawed gawking at them. Plus, even if they agreed not to leave, Hillary had no idea whether these were the sorts of aliens that could be trusted. Years of movies and TV had left her with mixed feelings about the motivations of aliens, but she knew there was a distinct possibility that she might wind up, in the end, rendered into a glob of goo.

That was why she decided, finally, to do nothing at all, except enjoy the rest of the night with her new friends. Who cared if she couldn’t prove that they’d been here? Maybe it didn’t matter; maybe she wouldn’t tell anyone at all -- not even Sam. Maybe this would be something for her and her alone. Surely it wouldn’t be their last alien encounter. There were nearly seven hundred more case files to go through. Surely she would strike gold again.

“So,” she said at last, “you’re aliens, right?”

Of all possible routes, Hillary had chosen the fast lane. No subtlety. No duplicity. Not a hint of shame. She hoped that they appreciated frankness or, at the very least, didn’t reward it with liquefaction.

Cal and Marla eyed each other for a brief moment.

“Well, you see…,”

“....I wouldn’t quite…”

“...that is to say, ‘aliens’....”

They weren’t completing each other’s sentences so much as elongating them, stretching them out, as if this were the Inquisition and they had put whatever it was they were trying to say on the rack for questioning.

Cal took a long, deep breath.

“We weren’t aliens once. But that was a long time ago, and…”

“...and once you’ve had your insides turned around so they’re your outsides, and once you’ve had all your blood replaced with a very specific isotope of Radon…”

“...and once you’ve traveled at hypersonic speed to pick up the margarine you forgot at the grocery store…”

“You’re aliens,” Hillary said at last.

“Yeah, well, kinda sorta,” Cal conceded.

“I guess so,” Marla agreed.

Hillary learned the rest of the story throughout the night -- and not just from the DePews, though they continued to speak well after Hillary had had her fill of them. She got different pieces from the Figuerdos, Tom Kearns, Ethel Graves, Jim Daubenspeck and the Krugs alike. Not one of them was unfriendly, either. They were eager to share their stories. Even with the occasional hop back home to Earth, space had made them homesick for their old lives. Retelling what had happened was the closest they’d ever get to being the people they were back then.

Like so many things, both here on Earth and elsewhere, it had started out as a mistake. The creatures who visited on that summer night last century had been aiming for an entirely different planet in an entirely different solar system when they struck this one instead. Blame it on a rounding error in their ship’s navigation system. Whereas they had expected to wind up in the atmosphere of an uninhabited gas giant eighteen hundred lightyears away, they wound up in Wells, Nevada instead. It was their arrival in the upper reaches of our periphery, the tearing apart of the molecules of oxygen that we breathe, that caused the bright flashes the night clerk and the guests saw that evening. The ship itself was invisible to the human eye: the flashes were really no more than the thing’s suffering exhaust.

Upon realizing their error, and not wanting to miss an opportunity to do some research on an otherwise barely understood backwater of the universe, the creatures hijacked the nearest handful of humans -- Mr. Clemons notwithstanding. Their initial scan of the night clerk showed that his ornery temperament would make him a poor candidate for the testing the creatures had in mind.

There was probing and poking. There was, as Marla mentioned, the great reshaping of their insides, the remodeling of their organs, and the reorganizations of their psyches. It was unbelievably painful albeit for the infinitely briefest moment. The death of their physical forms came quickly and absolutely, like the concocting of a lie. Afterward, each of the former Earthlings described a feeling of aloofness as their dispossessed psyches watched the aliens examine their ex-innards. It was like, they said, watching a film with you as the star, without you ever having starred in it.

Once it was done and the aliens learned what they could, they gave the disembodied neurons of the humans two options. That all of them, man, woman and child, selected the same option was a surprise to the creatures. That they all selected the second option was even more surprising. If they had had a past time as foolish as gambling, the creatures would have put good money on the idea that most humans would choose instant, irreversible, total and complete annihilation. No trace left of their bodies or souls. That sort of thing was the norm at the time. Living, amongst that particular set of beings, was viewed as a minor inconvenience incurred between birth and death, a little like a commute.

Instead, the humans chose immortality. Of course, with their true lives ended by the time the aliens sliced through their viscera, it was a specific kind of immortality. They would be reconstructed and rebuilt, chimeras of machines and extra-terrestrial flesh. Their memories would be transferred to their new forms flawlessly. But they would never grow. They would never age. They could barely change. They could live forever, but only as snapshots of the people they used to be.

From there, they dispersed. They lived lives not dissimilar to other beings in space. They took jobs as intergalactic zookeepers and accountants for corrupt Yttrium mining outfits. They vacationed on the hot coals that trail behind the tails of comets. They ate plasma-fried poultry burgers at county fairs held on minor moons and demi-planets. All of which is to say that their lives, while very different from what they could have been had this all never happened, ended up being not so different at all.

And, once a year, they tried to make it back to the rundown motel where it all started.

Hillary’s can of Argot’s Ale went unopened even as the night ended. She would sacrifice whatever buzz the light beer-flavored dishwater might offer it meant having unadulterated memories of the strangest night of her life.

Edging her way back into their room, Hillary was many things. Exhausted from hours of conversation. Confused. Exhilarated. Confused. Excited.

Confused.

But not dejected; even though no one would ever believe a single story she recounted from the evening and even though she didn't have a lick of proof to shove back in their faces. There was no use in trying. Her only fear was that someday in the future, without having ever shared the stories with anyone, she might doubt what had happened herself. What if, she wondered, she thought that these too were just meaningless dreams had at the Mas Suenos Motel?