'Night-time Cinema.'

Gwen Stefani preens from the stereo of Avery's car. There are fields on either side and a stretch of mountain far off; the moon is dark like a century egg. 

Avery, sat in the driver's seat, bobs her head to the latest pop idols on the radio. Her hands grapple the steering wheel, blonde hair pitching like a disco in the wind, arms tan and bare to the shoulder.

A Tiffany and Co sweetheart chain glitters on her neck and a yellow tank constricts her chest. She smiles through cherry lips, shouting over the ruckus.

"Where did they say the movie was?" Her hand loosens to snatch up last night's happy meal. She leans forward and cranks up the music. The chips are cold.

I read off her cellphone, "67 Venus Road - they're waiting for us at the car park."

Avery, eyes on the road, cocks her head expectantly.

"They have drinks," I say.

She nods, "Good. You can drive us back."

A hand from behind me digs around the chip bag.

"Matt?" I ask. He leans forward, forearms resting on the back of my seat. I put my right hand up, close my lips on a ciggy, take a draught, and hand it to him.

"Who's showing?" He asks. His fringe winks in the open air. My lipgloss shimmers on the end of the blunt, in his mouth.

"Meg, Jem, and Peggy," answers Avery.

"Luke wanted to but his dad said no, because, like... sports and all." Avery flicks to the next music station.

"Oh my God, I love this song!" Britney Spear's Toxic blares from the radio.

"Peg says they'd change the film if there aren't too many people there."

"Best be good," says Matt. "How far are we, anyway?"

I pull a ring off my middle finger. Slip it on again. Pull it off. Stash it in a pocket and turn away from Matt.

"Well, if the road ends soon it won't be long," Avery hums. "It's only 9."

"And dark as shit," Matt mutters, face turned upwards.

The music dissipates in the dry night air. The window-lit farm houses glimmer like eyes in the fields.

It would be ghost-quiet, if not for the whistle of wind on the motor, and the rock of tires on the highway. Avery turns up the music.

We jump as her phone starts ringing an electronic remix of Shakira.

"Who's that?" Avery asks. She flicks her hand at me in an action that says 'answer it.' The phone is wreathed with rhinestones.

Click. I flip it open.

"Peggy?" Laughter crackles through the line.

"Yes love, where are you?" The familiar voice gurgles.

"It's Maeve," I say, "we're still driving."

"Oh, put me on speaker, will you?"

I press the microphone, giggles blaring loudly.

“Peg?” Asks Avery. The background noise crackles through the line. “It’s me Peg, what's happening?”

"They're playing the bloody moonwalk," she shouts, "shut up Jem!" They were a couple of happy drunks giddy from the nighttime thrill.

"The moonwalk? What do you mean, love?" Avery raises her eyebrows. 

Peggy laughs with someone on her side before returning the conversation. "Space Odyssey, you silly!" 

Matt taps me on the shoulder and I pass the phone to Avery. She holds it to her shoulder with a cheek, bangles chattering like peacocks.

The vehicle veers before Avery gets ahold of the wheel again. She tugs up her tank top, resuming the conversation.

"You think they're drunk?" asks Matt.

His hair is dark and shiny, hung low over his eyes as if looking through a screen. Where his face shows it's brown; in an almond shape, with smooth full lips like a love heart.

A hand is resting on his knee, the legs with white clean sneakers, and his elbows are propped up on the backrest. He wears a black turtle neck, a hoodie, and straight-leg jeans. 

I shrug my shoulders, "Probably."

"How do we get back?" His voice is soft but I'm close enough to hear him. We exchange whispers in the gloom.

"The next town is an hour away," I repeat, "But Jem insisted that we get to Kansas before bed." I turn back to Avery. The car speeds down the highway.

"They've already checked in at the motel, by the way, and drove back to see the film with us."

I look at Avery, absorbed in her discussion.

"Yes, but what's the matter with that?" She gurgles.

Her long platinum hair falls in waves past the shoulder, with a few pink and aqua peekaboo strands. Her tank top drops down, ashes on her puffer jacket, and a smoking cigarette in the ashtray on her lap. Her arms are pigeon-bent on the steering wheel, head angled oddly to the side.

Peggy responds, "I didn't drive to the middle of nowhere to watch sci-fi. I've, like, hated that since Harry Potter." Avery shrugs the phone to me, rolling her eyes.

"Didn't you say they'd change it if we're the only ones there?" I take the phone off speaker.

"Well, I'm sure they would if the station wasn't closed. The movie's playing on the telly inside, what a rip-off." Someone mutters to Peggy on her end of the line. "Shit... you're right," her voice drawls - not to me.

"What?" I say. I put the phone closer to my ear and turn the stereo off. Avery scowls, and the wind whistles.

"Meg, do you see it too?" Peggy's voice gets distant and suddenly the line goes dead.

Avery looks at me through the rearview mirror, then back at the road. She does it again. 

"I'll call them back," I say. I dial Peggy twice, then Jem and Meg, and Peggy once again. I'm put straight to voicemail. 

"We'll be there soon enough," Avery mutters.

We spot the car park before we arrive - it's the only light along the road. A peeling billboard sticks out of the earth like a stop sign, blocking out the stars. The pebbles pelt our tires like popcorn.

Avery pulls in beside what we suspect is Peggy's car, still running. It sits, parked diagonally on the greyed tarmac. The stereo sputters like a firework, and a phone sits abandoned on the dashboard, emitting a pale, ghostly light. But it's too quiet.

To the left, the farm starts, covered in long grasses, with brambles forming patches along the edge. There is an old, burnt-out car half-eaten by the foliage, and a gas station on the opposite side; Keir Dullea stares at his reflection, clad in a red spacesuit played on the window TV.

Avery turns the car keys and the engine stops. "Where are they?" She rasps.

Matt gets out of the car. He walks to the gas station on the right, shouting "Peggy? Meg, Jem?"

I slip out of the side door and enter the unlocked car. I pick up the phone, flick it open. Peggy's tan face smiles brightly. The leather seats are sticky with booze. A dribbling cruiser bleeds onto the seat like a faulty faucet. 

"Try calling them again," I say to Avery. "But don't bother with Peggy, her phone is in the car."

I rush to Matt, sitting on the dirt at the foot of the drive. 

"I think they've gone in there." He points to a trampled trail of grain, bordered by a cardboard pack of beer bottles.

"Wait here." I head back to the car.

Avery is searching through the debris as she babbles into the phone. "We're here, where are you? If you don't answer I swear to God I'll call someone."

Her muscles are tight and strappy, face drawn into a worried expression – a face that now might have fallen out of love with the idea of beauty.

"Matt and I are going into the field, wait here. We'll be back soon."

Avery nods distractedly, putting her phone on her shoulder as she opens a handbag and shuffles through its contents. 

"If we're not back soon, call the police!" I yell back to her.

I slip into Matt's spare trainers and grab my phone, turning on the flash. I take the car keys, slipping them into my fingers just in case. I meet Matt and head into the tangle.

The wind rustles through the grain stalks, creating the rhythmic rack of a morocco.

Matt's neck is a wash of amber, olive smooth and light with perspiration. He ducks to clear the grain, and starlight streaks through the crops in shadowed beams.

For a long time, he says nothing. We hardly seem to breathe at all. When he at last begins to speak, his face stays forward.

"There's a hill ahead."

He looks back at me from where he stands in the grass. His eyes are hot and bright, and moisture beads across his upper lip.

He shuffles through the thinning stalks and disappears. A bright light emanates through the foliage. I follow and gasp as I emerge.

We're up on a hillside, overlooking a field with a dark shadow dropped into the middle like a graphically shaven head. A star is in its centre, bordered by swirls like Aztec symbols and five more rings at the points; a crop circle. Matt sputters.

Above the cropping is a spacecraft, hovering quietly like a pencil with small wings. It emits a blinding yellow light, three figures floating steadily towards an opening at its centre.

There they hang; Jem, Peg, and Meg - curved like ripe bananas at the foot of a spaceship.

The UFO sucks them up like soda pop and disappears like a comet in the sky.