The Road to Roswell, page 1
The Road to Roswell is a work of fiction. Names, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2023 by Connie Willis
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Del Rey, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.
Del Rey is a registered trademark and the Circle colophon is a trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.
Hardback ISBN 9780593499856
Ebook ISBN 9780593499863
randomhousebooks.com
Book design by Elizabeth A. D. Eno, adapted for ebook
Cover design and illustration: Toby Triumph
Art direction: Cassie Gonzales
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Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Epigraph
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Dedication
Acknowledgments
By Connie Willis
About the Author
_144052297_
The surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that it has never tried to contact us.
—Bill Watterson
Be hospitable to strangers.
—The Code of the West
“Let me ask you something. If you were an alien—you can go anywhere in the world—would you pick Roswell?”
—Roswell
CHAPTER ONE
Paul: Yeah, well, you’re killin’ yourself. A friend can’t be worth that.
Hogy: Well now, how would you know? Did you ever have one?
—The Virginian
Serena wasn’t in the airport waiting area when Francie got off the plane in Albuquerque, but a man carrying a sign reading First Contact Committee—Welcome to the UFO Festival was.
UFO Festival? Serena hadn’t said anything about a UFO festival going on at the same time as her wedding. Maybe it’s not in Roswell, Francie thought hopefully. But of course it was. Where else would a UFO festival be?
And as if to confirm that, here came two guys in Star Trek uniforms and Spock ears, hurrying up to greet a third in a silver unitard and a gray alien mask with large black almond-shaped eyes and no nose.
Thank goodness I didn’t succeed in talking Ted into being my plus-one for this wedding, she thought. Or worse, Graham. She’d tried to talk somebody, anybody, from work into coming with her so Serena wouldn’t try to fix her up with someone, but when she’d told them where the wedding was, they’d all said no.
“Roswell?” Graham had said. “The place with all the UFO nut jobs?”
“Why is it in Roswell?” Ted had asked. “Does your friend live there?”
“No, she lives in Phoenix. They’re just having the wedding in Roswell.”
“Why?” Graham said. “Why would anyone in their right mind go to Roswell?” and she’d been forced to tell them that Serena was marrying one of those selfsame UFO nut jobs, at which point both of them had not only refused to be her plus-one but told her she was crazy for going herself.
“I have to,” she’d told them. “Serena asked me to be her maid of honor, and she’s one of my very best friends. She was my freshman roommate in college. We have a special bond.”
“A special bond?” Graham had said. “What are you, Sisters of the Traveling Pants or something?”
“No,” she’d said defensively, “but I owe her a lot. She saved my life when I was a freshman,” and tried to explain how, when she’d arrived at college in Tucson, knowing no one, homesick for New England, and shocked by the heat and barrenness of the Southwest, Serena had kept her from getting on the first plane home. She’d shown her around campus, introduced her to people, taught her what tumbleweeds and javelinas and saguaros were, and convinced her there weren’t any rattlesnakes on campus (which would definitely have sent Francie screaming back to Connecticut). And when Francie’s high school boyfriend had broken up with her two weeks later, Serena’d sat with her while she’d sobbed, told her “he wasn’t right for you at all,” and generally patched her back together.
“She’s been a terrific friend,” Francie said. “Sympathetic, funny, and—”
“And out of her mind if she believes all this aliens-from-outer-space garbage,” Graham had said. “I don’t know about you, but it’s my policy to avoid nut jobs, old roommates or not.”
Ted nodded. “I had a roommate my sophomore year who believed birds were spying on him. You don’t catch me going to his wedding.”
“She isn’t a nut job,” Francie protested. “She’s just a little…ditzy, and inclined to go along with what her boyfriends think.”
And she has terrible taste in men, Francie added silently. Worse than terrible. When Francie first met her, Serena had been dating a kamikaze BASE jumper who’d wanted her to dive headfirst into the Grand Canyon with him, and her taste hadn’t improved since then. She’d dated a gun-stockpiling survivalist and a breatharian, who believed you could survive on air and positive thinking, and been engaged to a soul shaman and a stormchaser.
“All the more reason not to go,” Graham had said. “You’ll just be condoning her marrying this guy.”
Ted had nodded. “Definitely complicit. Unless you’re going because you want to talk her out of it,” and Graham had pounced.
“That’s it, isn’t it? You’re going out there to pull one of those dramatic ‘speak now or forever hold your peace’ numbers, aren’t you?”
She’d insisted she wasn’t, but they hadn’t believed her and had refused to listen when she’d tried to explain that she wouldn’t have to talk Serena out of it—that Serena always came to her senses and started having second thoughts herself. That’s what had happened with the stormchaser. “He thinks tornadoes are an adventure, like The Wizard of Oz or something,” she’d told Francie, “but they’re dangerous! And he expects me to drive straight into them with him!”
All Francie’d had to do was stand there while Serena talked herself out of it and called the wedding off. But to have that happen, Francie had to be there to listen to her doubts and assure her she was doing the right thing. Serena counted on Francie to be her sounding board and her backup, to rescue her from making a terrible decision just like she’d rescued Francie so many times. “Friends are supposed to help each other, aren’t they?” Francie had asked Ted and Graham.
“Yeah, but there are limits,” Ted had said. “What if next time she decides to marry a serial killer and you talk her out of it and he comes after you?”
“She is not going to marry a serial killer.”
“My advice is to tell her something came up and you can’t come,” Graham said.
“Yeah, tell her you broke your leg or something,” Ted added.
“I can’t do that. I can’t just abandon her. She needs me.”
“Okay,” they’d said, “but don’t come crying to us if this turns out to be a complete disaster.”
Which it very well might, she thought, looking around the waiting area. Where was Serena? She’d specifically said she’d be at the airport to drive Francie down to Roswell. “That way we’ll have a chance to talk,” she’d said, and Francie had taken that as a sign Serena was already having second thoughts. So where is she?
Francie texted, Where R U?
No answer. Maybe she thinks we were supposed to meet at baggage claim, Francie thought, shouldered her carry-on, and went down the escalator to see if Serena was there.
She wasn’t, but a number of people going to the UFO Festival were, and yes, the festival was in Roswell, because their T-shirts all said so, and as if that wasn’t enough, they were all talking about a UFO sighting that had happened on Monday night.
“Where?” a woman in a silver minidress and green body makeup asked.
“West of Roswell. Just outside Hondo, near those big red-rock buttes,” one of the T-shirt guys said.
“I don’t remember any red-rock buttes near Hondo,” the green woman said.
“I don’t know, that’s just what they said. It was on UfosAreReal.net.”
Francie texted Serena again, checked the other luggage carousels, and then walked outside to see if she might be waiting in her car.
She wasn’t. Francie went back inside to the baggage carousel in case she’d missed her somehow,
“In Roswell,” Serena said, sounding harried. “I’m so sorry about this. I intended to be there to meet you, but we’ve had all kinds of problems, and I still have to pick up your dress, and it’s a complete zoo here with the festival and the town getting ready for the Fourth of July and everything, so I asked Russell’s best man to pick you up. His name’s Larry. He’s perfect for you.”
I doubt that, Francie thought. Serena’s taste in guys for Francie was as bad as her own choices in boyfriends. At her almost-wedding to the stormchaser, she’d tried to fix Francie up with a ghosthunter who spent his time in ghost towns with an EMF detector, looking for the ghosts of outlaws and claiming he’d collected their ectoplasm. Which was why Francie had been so desperate to bring a plus-one with her.
“Larry’s totally hot,” Serena was saying. “He’s six foot two and really interesting to talk to. He’s had three close encounters and been abducted twice. He wrote a book about it—The Survivor’s Guide to Alien Abduction.”
“So where’s he supposed to meet me?” Francie said, scanning the baggage claim for someone tall, dark, and handsome, but the only people waiting for their luggage were three teenagers in Star Trek uniforms and Spock ears. “He wasn’t abducted again, was he?”
“No,” Serena said, “but there was a possible sighting two nights ago that he had to go check out.”
Oh my God, I am so glad Graham and Ted refused to come, Francie thought. I would never hear the end of it.
“I’m afraid you’re going to have to rent a car and drive down. I’m really sorry.”
I’m not, Francie thought. Three hours in a car with a nut giving you tips on how not to get beamed up and probed by aliens was the last thing she needed. “It’s fine. I’ll go rent one right now. Hang on,” she said, walking across to the car rental area as she talked.
Apparently everyone in Albuquerque was also renting a car. The line was really long. But at least the people in it looked relatively normal. She got into the line behind a grandmotherly-looking woman and said to Serena, “Okay, I’m in line. How do I get to Roswell?”
“You take I-40 east out of Albuquerque to— What?” Serena said, obviously talking to someone else. “Why not?”
There was a pause, and then Serena said, “Francie? Sorry. Can I call you back?”
“Yes,” Francie said, and added silently, looking at the length of the line, I have a feeling I’m going to be here awhile.
“Okay, bye,” Serena said, and hung up.
The woman in line ahead of her turned around. “I couldn’t help hearing you asking how to get to Roswell. Are you going to the UFO Festival, too?”
“No,” Francie said, “I—”
“Oh, you should,” the grandmotherly woman said. “They hold it every year on the weekend closest to the anniversary of the crash—July the eighth.”
“That’s wrong. They didn’t crash on the eighth,” a middle-aged man in front of her said. “They crashed on the sixth. It was reported in the newspaper on the eighth.”
“The festival has all sorts of speakers and panels,” the grandmother went on, “and a hospital gurney race with aliens strapped to the gurneys—not real ones, of course.”
Of course, Francie thought, cursing Serena for consigning her to this line. And to who knew what else?
“There are fireworks at the fairgrounds,” the man said, “and tours out to the J. B. Foster ranch where the saucer crashed.”
“And the government covered it up,” someone else in line put in.
The man nodded. “So many people attended it last year they had to add an extra day. This year’s theme is Alien Abductions.”
“My grandson was abducted,” the grandmother said. “He was driving to Truth or Consequences one night when he heard this strange whooshing noise and then saw this strange light. It paralyzed him so he couldn’t resist and beamed him up out of his car and into the ship. They stuck a needle up his nose and implanted a chip in his brain.”
The man nodded. “My neighbor was abducted, too. He has a scar where they implanted a chip into his leg.”
Francie looked longingly at the front of the line, but it hadn’t moved at all.
“You must come to the festival,” the grandmother said. “I’d be happy to show you around.”
“I’m afraid I can’t,” Francie said. “I’m here for a wedding. I’m the maid of honor.”
“Oh, how nice!” she said, and a woman farther ahead in the line piped up, “My niece got married at the festival last year. All her attendants were dressed as Grays.”
“Grays?” Francie said blankly.
“E.T.s. Aliens.”
“There are three kinds of extraterrestrials,” the man explained. “Grays—those are the ones you see in the movies with the silver skin, big heads, and almond-shaped eyes—and Reptilians—they’re worse than the Grays, they want to take over Earth—and Venusians. They’re tall and blond and look outwardly human, but you can tell they’re aliens because they just feel wrong. The sight of them makes your skin crawl.”
“That’s because we’re hardwired to be afraid of anything from another planet,” the second woman said knowledgeably. “It’s called exo-xenophobia. We automatically feel terror and loathing when we’re in the presence of something from another planet.”
“Is everyone going to be in costume for your wedding?” the grandmother cut in to ask.
“No,” Francie said, and then remembered Serena had only said, “You’ll love your dress,” which didn’t preclude a bizarre headdress. Or an alien mask.
“My niece’s wedding was at the UFO museum,” the woman was saying, “in front of the flying saucer.”
“Do you know how long the drive to Roswell takes?” Francie asked to change the subject.
“Three hours,” the man with the abducted neighbor said.
“You’re not driving down by yourself, are you?” the grandmother asked nervously. “Over half of all abductions happen to people when they’re alone in their cars.”
“And there was a sighting the night before last,” the wedding woman said. “They got a video of it,” and the first man immediately pulled out his phone and began typing.
“You’re not driving down after dark, are you?” the grandmother asked Francie.
That depends on how long this line takes, Francie thought. “No. I’m leaving as soon as I get my car. But I really don’t think there’s any reason to worry—”
“Then you should look at this,” the man said and thrust the phone at her.
The video had obviously been shot from a partly rolled-down car window. It showed darkness and then a momentary blur of light that was definitely a UFO. Or an airplane. Or a passing headlight. Or a kid with a flashlight.
But the others were all very impressed with it. “It looks just like the sighting the last day of the festival last year,” the wedding woman said, and the man who’d described the categories of aliens nodded sagely.
“They always show up during the festival. They sense when we’re thinking about them,” he said. “They’re telepathic, you know.”
“That’s not a UFO,” a lank-haired guy standing in front of the wedding woman said, coming up to look over her shoulder at the video.
Thank goodness, Francie thought. A ray of sanity.
“It doesn’t look anything like the one that abducted me,” he said. “Mine had these round red lights all around it.”
“What did the aliens do to you?” the first woman asked.
“I don’t know. I was driving down to Las Cruces one night around midnight, and all of a sudden my car died, just like that. I thought I must be out of gas, but the gas gauge said half-full, and it wasn’t just the car’s engine; the lights and my cellphone died, too. And then I saw these giant glowing red orbs. And that’s the last thing I remember.”
