“Damn, there’s another one,” Aaron said. He flipped on the Ford Explorer’s windshield wipers, but they only smeared what was left of the greasy bug across the already dirty glass.
Lisa looked at her watch. 2:30 a.m. “Where are we, anyway?”
“Not sure. Somewhere between Bismarck and Fargo.” Aaron yawned.
Lisa leaned back and looked out the window. The dash lights reflected onto the glass, merging with the stars and forming a surreal night sky. She took another sip from her thawing water bottle. It was unusually muggy for August. Even with the air conditioning blasting, her shorts and tank top stuck to her skin. Frustrated, she pulled off the sheer shirt she wore over her tank and crammed it into the door pocket, then tied her blond hair up into a loose pony-tail so that the cool air from the dash could reach the back of her neck.
“We just passed a sign that said there’s gas at the next exit,” Aaron said. “I’m gonna stop, and we can clean the windshield and fill up. Um, this time of night, we’re gonna have to use your credit card.”
Lisa sighed. She and Aaron had been dating since the middle of spring semester. Lisa and Tim, Aaron’s brother, managed to hold down part-time jobs while going to college. Lisa worked at an auto mechanic’s shop, and Tim pulled graveyard shifts as an orderly at the hospital. Aaron, on the other hand, claimed that having a job would distract him from his studies. So Lisa ended up paying for much of their joint recreation.
In the back, Tim coughed and rolled over. Tim had caught a nasty cold two days ago in Duluth. Now, with the rear seat folded down and all of their camping gear stacked behind Lisa, Tim slept stretched out on top of his sleeping bag. Whatever he had taken to relieve his fever and sniffles had knocked him out. Lisa envied him.
#
The gas station occupied a vast expanse of pavement at the intersection of the off-ramp and the frontage road. The small convenience store was dark except for a single red neon “Beer” sign. In front of the store, two rows of gas pumps sat under a brightly-lit metal canopy. Near the canopy lights and just above the asphalt, swarms of insects hovered.“Look at that,” Lisa said. “There are even more bugs here than up on the highway.”
“They’re positively phototactic.”
“What?”
“It means they’re attracted to light,” Aaron said. “Cockroaches, for example, would be negatively phototactic.”
Lisa raised her eyebrows and looked at him.
“Animal Planet,” he said.
“Ugh.” She shuddered. Insects repulsed her, particularly flying ones. She looked out again. Most of the insects appeared to be flies or moths of some kind. Relatively harmless, she told herself.
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