An Extraterrestrial Night

It was a tremendously exciting evening.

On either side of the road, vegetation tore past in a green blur. Wind battered Mary Palmer's grinning face, blotting out the sounds of her younger sister's iPad; specifically, the game on her iPad: My Little Pony: Puzzle Party. Mary found the noises intrusive. She was, to a far greater extent, more fascinated in spotting a UFO. In further elaboration, the famous, mysterious lights seen creeping and flaring in the skies above Brown Mountain that were thought to be UFOs. John scoffed at the idea, whereas their parents contended that it was possible, but highly unlikely. And every single time the topic bubbled into conversations, Stacey would smile and say they were Pegasi.

"Mary Michelle Palmer!" her mom called out from the front passenger seat. "Please, get your head from out the window!"

"Relax, Alondra," said her father, adjusting his gold-framed glasses. "She's not going to get decapitated. Oh, hell, fuel's running low."

"What's decapitated?" inquired Stacey.

Ignoring her sibling, Mary pulled her head back in the minivan, still grinning stupidly. "Oh, I'm so pumped! I can't wait 'till we get to the camping spot! You think we'll actually get to see the lights?"

"You mean the Pegasi?"

"They're not Pegasi, Stacey. They're aliens."

Mary's elder brother, John, yawned and scratched his neck. "You guys, they're both ridiculous as... Dang, look up ahead!"

"What?"

"Look at that tunnel! It looks like it goes completely straight, but I can't see the end!"

Paying no heed to her mother's protests, Mary stuck her head out the window again. Sure enough, they were approaching an insanely deep tunnel. It was lit by lamps on the inside, but ran on so far that the end was nowhere to be seen. Around the mouth of the tunnel was an assortment of large wooden signs that displayed frightful warnings, like ""Beware, turn around!" and "No one has returned!" and Keep your youngest's mind BLANK!!!

"Dad, can we like... not go in there?" John asked jokingly. Mary's wide eyes asked the same question, though they betrayed her nervousness.

"Relax, people," Richard Palmer said nonchalantly, fixing his glasses again as he drove their Sienna fast into the tunnel. "Most likely, those were made by a handful of idiot pranksters."

His wife knitted her brows. "Really? The GPS isn't showing us this. It says we're on the right road, but there's nothing about the tunnel."

John sighed and shrugged, but Mary's shoulders were tense for the next few minutes. Stacey, wholly engrossed in her pony game, had no idea what was going on. After ten more minutes, though, they still had not excited the tunnel.

"Richard," Alondra said meekly. "The GPS says that we we're supposed to turn in a few minutes.

"Okay, thanks."

Four more minutes slipped past.

"Richard, the GPS says we need to... Oh, dear."

"What?"

"The GPS says that we just went off the road! We were supposed to turn!"

"Well, this cursed tunnel just keeps going. See, this is exactly why GPS is a retar—Holy heck!"

With a loud bang, all the tunnel's lights went dark. Richard slammed on the brakes, and their minivan squealed from sixty to zero. Mary felt herself squeezed hard against her seatbelt. For a frightening moment, everyone was enveloped in blackness until Alondra reached up and turned an interior light on.

"Damn," John breathed.

Stacey put down her iPad and started crying. While Mary comforted her, there was a distant howling and John muttered something about aliens.

"Okay, okay, people. Relax. It's just a blackout, and I just heard wolves. I think we're close to the end," Richard said calmly, checking the fuel meter. "We're running on fumes, though. There was supposed to be a gas station up ahead, but Mr. GPS here thinks that we've run off the lane." Through the darkness, he started the car forward again, and was preparing to switch on the headlights when three things happened at once.

The air pressure plummeted dramatically. Mary's ears popped and it hurt; she felt as if she had jumped from the bottom of the ocean straight to the surface. Her parents groaned, John scrunched up his face, and Stacey cried harder. With another bang, every light in the tunnel flared back to life, making the entire family jump. Finally, appearing with the light were two growling, nightmarish wolves. They were almost the size of rhinos, with bright, glowing green eyes that sent chills up Mary's spine, though they bore an even scarier aspect: their ragged bodies were entirely composed of interconnected tree branches, some with leaves still attached.

The wolves charged and Alondra screamed.

"Dad!" John squawked. "Back up! Back up! Back up!"

Mary heard the tires screech as her father sent the Sienna speeding backwards, but they ran into another wooden wolf that had circled behind them. The back window shattered, and a bit of luggage spilled out. By now, the entire Palmer family was in hysterics, except for Richard; he scowled, shifted gears, and nearly crushed the gas pedal underneath his foot. Their minivan shrieked forth, and the two wolves charging towards them tried to stop in their mad run, but were hit anyway. There was a sickening crunch.

"Oh my God!" shouted Mary, sweating like a pig. "Did you just kill them?!"

Richard didn't answer. He kept driving, and Mary sensed a change in terrain; the road turned from smooth asphalt to dirt as they exited the tunnel and entered a dark forest.

"We're out," John breathed. "That was hell."

"What happened with the air pressure?" Mary asked, her question directed at no one in particular. She didn't get an answer.

"Daddy, can we go back?" Stacey asked, her voice timid.

"We can't. We don't have enough gas. I've got no idea where the next gas station is, and according to the GPS, we've gone right off a cliff. On the bright side... we've got cell phone service. "

"Actually... " John said apologetically, holding up his iPhone, "We don't."

"But what if more Timberwolves come back?" Stacey asked again.

Richard turned to look at Stacey, raising an eyebrow. "Timberwolves?"

"Yeah, they're from My Little Pony. When Starlight Glimmer tried to mess everything up..."

While her father and brother were busy puzzling over Stacey's words, Mary was observing their surroundings. Though she could have sworn that sunset would have held back for another hour, it was nighttime already. Then, as they drove on, the dark canopy above parted, and Mary gasped. The moon, which was supposed to a first-quarter moon that night, was now a huge, intense orb in the dark blue sky. Amid clouds that spiraled with dramatic perfection, the moon was also covered in three separate, pale colors: magenta, violet, and green. Etched from craters onto its surface, clearly visible from the ground, was the image of a unicorn's regal head.

"Daddy," Stacey said softly as their car rolled to a gentle stop, having exhausted its fuel supply. Through her window, she pointed to the moon. "This is The Cutie Re-Mark."

Richard and his wife were staring at the moon now, baffled and transfixed.

"The what?"