The Road to Roswell: A Novel

by Connie Willis

Genres: Alien Invasion; Humorous sci-fi

Synopsis

A delightful novel about alien invasions, conspiracies, and the incredibly silly things people are willing to believe—some of which may actually be true—from the Nebula and Hugo award-winning author of Blackout and All Clear

“An absolute blast with abundant humor, copious references to old westerns, and . . . a delightful, intergalactic twist on the romantic comedy.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

When level-headed Francie arrives in Roswell, New Mexico, for her college roommate’s UFO-themed wedding—complete with a true-believer bridegroom—she can’t help but roll her eyes at all the wide-eyed talk of aliens, which obviously don’t exist. Imagine her surprise, then, when she is abducted by one.

Odder still, her abductor is far from what the popular media have led her to expect, with a body like a tumbleweed and a mass of lightning-fast tentacles. Nor is Francie the only victim of the alien’s abduction spree. Before long, he has acquired a charming con man named Wade, a sweet little old lady with a casino addiction, a retiree with a huge RV and a love for old Westerns, and a UFO-chasing nutjob who is thoroughly convinced the alien intends to probe them and/or take over the planet.

But the more Francie gets to know the alien, the more convinced she becomes that he’s not an invader. That he’s in trouble and she has to help him. Only she doesn’t know how—or even what the trouble is. 

Part alien-abduction adventure, part road trip saga, part romantic comedy, The Road to Roswell is packed full of Men in Black, Elvis impersonators, tourist traps, rattlesnakes, chemtrails, and Close Encounters of the Third, Fourth, and Fifth kind. Can Francie, stuck in a neon green bridesmaid’s dress, save the world—and still make it back for the wedding?

 

Read more

Release date: June 27, 2023

Publisher: Del Rey

Print pages: 404

Sample

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 isshe?

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, checked her texts, and then called Serena. “Where are you?” she said when Serena answered.

“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.”

Thank goodness for that, Francie said to herself, looking hopefully at the line, which was finally moving.

“The next thing I know,” the guy went on, “it’s morning, and my pickup’s in a ditch. And when I contacted MUFON—that’s the Mutual UFO Network,” he explained for Francie’s benefit, “they said it definitely fit the pattern. The aliens almost always abduct people driving alone.”

The woman turned triumphantly to Francie. “You see? Maybe you’d better forget about renting a car and ride down with one of us.”

Over my dead body, Francie thought. “Thank you,” she said. “That’s very nice of you, but I’m going to need a car when I get there. And that reminds me, I promised I’d call my friend back. Can you hold my place in line for me?”

“Of course,” the grandmother said, and Francie went over to a corner to call Serena.

“You haven’t started down yet, have you?” Serena asked when she got her.

“No, I’m still in line at the rental car counter. I’m not going to be wearing some sort of costume for this wedding, am I?”

“Costume?” Serena said blankly.

Oh, thank goodness, Francie thought.

“Speaking of which, when you get here, you need to try on your dress in case it needs any last-minute alterations. I can’t wait for you to see it. It’s absolutely gorgeous.”

Yes, well, that was what she’d said about Francie’s maid-of-honor dress when she’d nearly married the stormchaser, and that had turned out to be a tie-dyed nightmare with eight-inch-long fringe. But at least Serena’d confirmed it wasn’t a costume.

“I’ll be there as soon as I can,” Francie said. “There’s a really long line for rental cars, but I’ll leave the minute I get it and—”

“About that,” Serena said.

Uh-oh, Francie thought.

“Russell was wondering if you could pick up another guest first. Russell was going to come get him, but he’s waiting to hear from Larry, and since you’re already there, I thought…He’s flying in from D.C., and his plane’s due at one forty-two, so it shouldn’t delay you that long. His name’s Henry Hastings and he’s on Delta flight number—”

“This isn’t another one of your setups, is it?” Francie interrupted.

“With Henry?” Serena said. “No. He works for the FBI. He’s this grim, always-wears-a-suit type. Russell met him when he was researching how the government covered up the Roswell crash because they’re secretly working with the aliens.”

“And this Henry person told Russell they were?”

“No,” Serena said. “He told Russell the whole thing’s ridiculous, that there aren’t any aliens, and the only cover-up was of a Cold War project the Air Force was conducting.”

No wonder Serena didn’t consider him matchmaking material. He sounded entirely too sane and sensible.

“Russell says that the fact that he’s denying it proves he’s part of the cover-up, so he invited him to the wedding to try to worm the truth out of him.”

And Henry is stupid enough to come? Francie thought, her opinion of him dropping. Until she remembered she had no room to talk.

“I’ll be glad to pick him up,” she said. At least she could save him three hours of being trapped in a car with Russell grilling him about government cover-ups. “What’s his flight number?”

“It’s 429, and his cellphone number is—”

“Hang on till I find something to write with,” Francie said, hurrying back to the line. She pantomimed writing, and the grandmother handed her a pen and a flyer for the UFO Festival.

“Thanks,” she murmured. “Okay, Serena. Go ahead.”

“He’s on Delta flight 429 from D.C. It comes in at one forty-two. His cellphone number is 202— What?”

Francie could hear a muffled male voice, and then Serena saying, “But surely that doesn’t include flowers!”

More muffled talk, and then Serena came back on the phone. “I need to go,” she said. “Call me as soon as you’ve connected with Henry. Bye.”

“Wait!” Francie said. “I need his cellphone number.”

“Oh, right.” Serena told her the number and then hung up.

Francie scrawled the number on the back of the flyer and then entered it in her phone and handed the flyer back to the grandmother. “No, no, you keep it,” she said, “in case you find time to go to the festival. I really wish you’d change your mind and drive down with one of us.”

Luckily, at that point it was the grandmother’s turn at the counter, and before the others could start up again about abductions and UFO sightings, a second agent appeared and Francie went up to the counter.

They were all out of cars in the compact, small, midsize, and full-size categories. “You should have made a reservation,” the agent said reprovingly. “We’re really busy because of it being the Fourth of July weekend and the UFO convention and all.”

“How about a flying saucer, then?” Francie asked.

“No, we don’t have any of those,” the agent said seriously. “All we have left is a Lexus LS at $385.00 a day or a Mercedes-Benz G 550 at $432.00 a day. The Mercedes has heated seats.”

Just what I need in Albuquerque in July, Francie thought. Besides which, she couldn’t afford either one. “Don’t you have anything less expensive?”

“I told you, you should have made a reservation,” the agent said, typing. “Oh, wait, we have a Jeep Wrangler that was just turned in. It’s $51.00 a day.”

“I’ll take it,” she said, and handed the agent her ID and credit card. “Is there any way I can expedite this? I have to meet someone coming in on another flight.”

“Of course,” the agent said, and produced forms for Francie to sign for accident, liability, and key replacement insurance, roadside assistance coverage, and buying a tank of gas up front. Francie signed them and produced her credit card, and the agent handed her a receipt to sign and a road map of New Mexico.

“That’s okay,” Francie said. “I have my phone.”

“You’d better take the map,” the agent said. “There are a lot of places in New Mexico without coverage.”

I’m not going anywhere but Roswell, Francie thought. But anything to speed things up. She took the map.

There were still four more forms to sign, and by the time the clerk handed her the keys, it was nearly one forty-five, and she decided she’d better meet Henry Hastings before she picked up the car. She grabbed her bag and went back upstairs to check the departures-and-arrivals board to see if his flight had landed.

It hadn’t. The flight was flashing delayed and showed a new arrival time of two fifteen. Of course.

But it was only half an hour late, and that would give her a chance to grab something to eat. She hadn’t eaten since having a stale bagel and coffee at LaGuardia. She texted Serena the new arrival time and then went upstairs to the cafe, asked for a table for one, and looked at the flautas, carne asada, and chimichangas on the menu, none of which she’d heard of when she first arrived at college. Serena had taught her what they were—and introduced her to Dos Equis and sangria, either of which would have helped while she was in that line, but which she’d better not have now since she was going to be driving and she had a feeling most of those alien abductions were alcohol-fueled.

She ordered chicken tacos and iced tea and then called Serena to tell her the flight had been delayed.

“Oh, dear,” Serena said. “I really need to talk to you.”

“About what?” Francie asked, hoping she’d say, I’ve decided Russell’s crazy and I can’t marry him, but all Serena said was “Don’t worry. I guess it can wait till you get here.”

“I’ll be there as soon as I can,” Francie promised. “I’ll pick up Russell’s friend and we’ll start down to Roswell immediately.”

She hung up and ran out to check the board again. The flight now said two thirty-five. She went back to her table, where her tacos were just arriving.

So was the woman from the next table. “I couldn’t help overhearing you say you were going to Roswell,” she said. “Are you going to the festival, too?”

“No,” Francie said, and bit into a taco, hoping that would give the woman a hint.

“Oh, you should.” The woman sat down at Francie’s table. “W. Chambers Knoedler is going to be there. He wrote Invaders in Our Midst. It’s about how there are extraterrestrials among us right here, right now.”

And they’ve disguised themselves as UFO nuts, Francie thought, gobbling down her tacos so she could leave.

“They’re the advance guard of the invasion. The aliens are planning to take over the world and enslave all of us. Knoedler thinks they plan to time the invasion to coincide with the festival, when all the UFO investigators are busy and won’t realize what’s happening.”

“Mmm,” Francie said. “This is all really interesting, but I need to go check the arrivals board to see if my friend’s flight has arrived yet.”

“You don’t have to do that. I’ve got it all right here on my phone. Which airline and flight?”

Francie couldn’t think of a good reason not to tell her. “Delta,” she said. “Flight 429.”

The woman tapped at her phone. “It’s not coming in till three thirty-two,” she said, “which means there’s plenty of time for me to tell you about the UFO sighting west of Roswell. It happened Monday night. Knoedler thinks it was the first wave.”

She began tapping at her phone again while Francie looked around in vain for the waitress so she could get her check.

“Here’s the video Knoedler took,” the woman said. She showed it to Francie. This time it looked like a picture of the moon rising, which it no doubt was. “This is only a scout ship, of course. Not a battle cruiser. Those are disguised to look like planes.”

The waitress was nowhere in sight. Francie pulled a twenty and a five from her purse, put them on the table, grabbed her bag, told the woman, “It’s been nice talking to you,” and fled out to the waiting area and over to the arrivals board.

Flight 429 was now delayed to five forty-five. She called Serena. “The flight’s been delayed again,” she said. “It doesn’t get in till five forty-five. Do you still want me to wait?”

“No, I was just going to call you. Henry just texted Russell. He had something come up at work, so he’s taking a later flight. A red-eye. So he said not to pick him up, that he’ll rent a car.”

That’s what he thinks, Francie thought.

“So you can come straight down,” Serena said, “and help me figure out what to do.”

“About what?” Francie said. Please say, “About Russell.”

“About the wedding venue.” She lowered her voice. “Russell’s really excited about it, and I know we were lucky to get it, but…oh, well, I’m sure you’ll know what to do. So get here as soon as you can. Bye.”

“Wait,” Francie said. “You haven’t told me where you are.”

“Oh,” Serena said. “We’re at the UFO museum.”