Noctuidae (4 page)

She tried to bite Pete’s hand but his grip on her jaw covered her chin and was too firm for her to open her mouth. She struggled again to scream but her whimpers dwindled in the back of her throat. Pete shook the shadowed silhouette of his head. His movements seemed at once both frantic and subdued. Something didn’t add up. Was Pete himself frightened of something? His face was no more than a blur but she felt certain now he was scared.
Terrified.
Of what—
of Ron?
Where
was
Ron?
Where—?

Pete was linebacker big, outweighed Ron pretty well and her by maybe double. Sue-Min was no weakling but he was strong and had surprised her. She needed a weapon. What? Her Leatherman was zipped out of reach in her pack. A loose rock might be good but the cave floor offered only a mix of dust and the little river cobbles. A few scattered sticks. If she could find a sharp stick she might stab him in the eye. Worked for Ulysses, right? But his knees pinned her arms at the elbows, her hands already growing numb. Still, if he really wanted at her he would have to get up and peel her bag back at some point. She had to be ready to make her move when that happened. She couldn’t expect a second chance.

Sue drew in another breath and Pete pressed her down so hard she could feel individual stones on the cave floor through her sleeping bag and pad and the dense cover of dust beneath. He held his left index finger to his lips to shush her. Then he pointed into the night outside the cave mouth and rolled her head that direction with a shift of his heavy sweaty paw.

She had no clue what he wanted her to see. Outside was just more dark. Then it clicked. Part of the outside was
too
dark.
Far
too dark. She remembered stars when she fell asleep beside Ron, the sky above the opposite ridge thick with them. Now the sky without was a pool of ink. No stars, no moon, no silvered clouds. Nothing.

Pete pointed once more into the night. She understood he was giving directions, asking a question. Asking if she saw . . .

what?
He rolled her head beneath his hand again, pointing out along the angles at the corners of the cave mouth. Left, right, and thin strips of stars there to either side. Pale moonglow on the canyon’s facing ridge beneath. Between, more
nothing
. Then she knew this was what he wanted her to see. Something blocked the stars from sight in a broad rising swath straight ahead. Not clouds. Something closer. Some impossible bulk rising from the canyon outside to blot the sky and stars.

Pete held her gaze to the side one more time and pressed his own face forward. She tried to shrink back, expecting he sought to force his mouth on hers, but he only offered the down nod again as he stared at her, his coarse porous face mere inches from her own. He whispered —Promise you won’t scream if I take my hand away. If
you
scream, we’re
both
dead.

She stared up at him and willed her eyes into Tesla death rays. No luck.

—Listen to me
Sue
. This is life or death. That thing outside, I think it already got Ron. Killed him, ate him, I don’t know.

She felt a deep chill emptiness rush through her chest, ice water flooding her guts. Ron. Dead. She already knew—had known it somehow from the moment she woke. Now she was alone with Pete . . . with Pete and whatever was outside. Which was worse?

She struggled to scream again—from grief, from fear, from simple rage—but Pete kept his hand squeezed tight across her mouth. She gasped rapid breaths through his fingers as best she could.

—I want to let you go but you
got
to be quiet.
Promise me.

Again she beamed back her most concentrated hate. She
never
wanted him on this trip.
Oh, we’ll make it a double date
Ron told her. Except Pete’s alleged date was a no show, surprise, surprise. If the woman was ever even real. Oh god, was Ron really dead? Then she thought of the vast shadow obscuring the night outside. Oh what the fuck? She managed a stillborn miserable nod beneath his hand. Anything to get him off her. Who would she scream to anyway?

Pete stared down at her, his face suspended so close to her own. She felt certain if they could see each other clearly he would see her hatred and she would see his doubt. She had doubts of her own though. Legit ones. She distinctly felt the rigid root of his cock pressed against her where his crotch splayed over her pelvis, and she remembered from a cultural anthro class how guys were
not
supposed to get hard if they were genuinely scared. Their course text had shown carvings, erect angry effigies from around the world. Ithyphallic. An erection in the face of threat was alleged to demonstrate courage. If Pete wasn’t really afraid what else wasn’t true?
And what really happened to Ron?

Still, best to play along at this stage. Getting loose would allow her to call for help,
run
for help, find a weapon, maybe even find Ron. Pinned down this way she had no options, no chance. Nothing.

Again she offered what constrained nod she could, and this time Pete first eased the pressure of his hand then lifted it a few inches above her face. He did not rise off her though and kept close watch on her mouth.

Sue-Min gulped air and turned to the right causing Pete to drop his hand not quite but almost back to her mouth. No Ron in sight. The cave was small, Ron’s half empty pack still beside her. Ron was not. Ron was nowhere, nowhere she could see. Outside still the enormous shape of shade, a monstrous blotch of blackness blotting out the night sky. Inside Pete still straddled her, his gaze fixated on her mouth, knees pinning her arms above the elbows, gag hand prepared to clamp down at once if she screamed or yelled, made any sound. He leaned in close and she twisted her head to one side to avoid the unwelcome kiss she still anticipated.

Yet he only whispered in her ear. His voice crackled with what she took for genuine panic. She heard it clear now.
He
was barely keeping it together himself. Which likely made him more a threat.

—Listen to me. If you want to live through this night you
got
to listen to me. Here’s what I can tell you. Ron got up. To pee I suppose. I remember that. I half woke as he passed. I looked over at you and you were still asleep. Next thing I know Ron was
gone
. Just.
Gone.
I got up to check on him and when I came to the edge I saw what was out there. I stayed quiet, backed up slow,
real slow
. I’m sorry I sat on you but I was afraid you would scream and call it down on us if I woke you and showed you without taking measures. There’s more to all this but I can’t just explain. You’ve got to see for yourself.

Whoa. All this freaking out over what—a shadow? Was this all a setup? Still, hard-on or no, big burly Pete was visibly upset and she’d never seen him even ruffled before. But was he truly scared? She couldn’t deny
something
was bugging him. Plain old-fashioned guilt maybe? What if
he
had done something to Ron. She didn’t see how the shadow could be rigged though, and she never pegged Pete for much of an actor, despite his occasional tendency to quote from
Hamlet
. Seriously, what
was
that thing outside? And
where. Was. Ron?

Pete sank to all fours beside her. She wriggled away fast and as far as the now oversized tandem bag allowed, which was not far. He watched her but let her go.

—Okay. You need to follow me now. Keep low, be as quiet as you can, not a sound. Just trust me—you’ll understand when you see. And he swung his incurved arm like a swimmer, like a scythe.

Pete began crawling toward the cave mouth, but Sue-Min’s thighs shook so bad she couldn’t keep his pace, even after she got free of the sleeping bags. A couple meters on he crooked his neck, looked back at her behind him, barely out from the bag, made mute jerking motions with his chin for her to follow, another inward sweep of his arm. Could he see how she trembled?

She feared to set a precedent by taking his directions in any way, but she knew she needed to see it for herself, whatever
it
was. She steadied her legs some with deep breaths and effort and went on, shuffling over the dusty cobbles in her stocking feet silent as she could.

A few meters from the edge Pete pulled back, chinwagged again for her to go on alone. And again her situation devolved to an undesirable choice. As she crawled past Pete she mouthed
—My choice to go on. My choice, understand?
He only stared back blank as she came to the edge where
—Oh holy fucking shit!

The dark shapeless form outside rose high above them to where a sort of huge translucent fan crowned it. Some forty meters up or more. Long, broad, veiny . . .
petals
. . . caught the scant moonlight, glinting in oily inconsistency purple red green white blue back to red, marking passage en route through other hues unknown from any crayon box. The colors bore the elusive character of iridescent insects, shimmering back and forth from bright indefinable luminescence to matte absence with a hidden and indefinable rhythm. She gaped at the display, altogether strange yet almost beautiful.

The immense pitch bulk or trunk behind the array seemed immune to the moonlight, showing only as an enormous emptiness in the night. Despite its limited brightness Sue-Min somehow sensed a lack of life in the mass, an overall deadness as if it were a virus or remnant, a thing that lacked any animating spark.

The deathly petalled spread hung overhead like the centerlight pop of a single stillborn firework, one lone frozen moment from a long forgotten Fourth of July. Behind it the unlit trunk rose above and hung below till blocked either way by the cave mouth such that she could not decide the direction of its source, whether it was child of the riven Earth beneath or progeny of the very sky it blocked from view.

Was this great dark thing in the canyon some kind of massive night blooming cactus? Or was she witnessing the manifestation of a gigantic nocturnal beast, perhaps a Godzilla-sized star-nosed mole? Either way where had it been in the light? How could such an enormity simply
appear?

A muted crunch came from behind. She swung to see Pete on his feet beneath the bat roost, waving his hands in apparent attempt to roust the bats and shoo them out. She heard him whisper —Why aren’t you outside? It’s night!
Get out!
Get, get!
Go!

And after all why were the bats still inside this night? That didn’t seem right. She pressed herself to the pebbles as they flew overhead, none coming near her. Outside the attenuated moonlight caught the bats as they scattered. They seemed disoriented, flittering in twisted zigzags as if ill till one struck a blade of the object’s glimmering fan! She thought she saw the membrane twitch or ripple to intercept the bat, which stuck and hung there and as she watched began to dissipate, the veins glowing brighter right around it. She could see the bat’s essence streaming in toward the spread’s hidden center through the network of sinuous vessels. Their luminosity increased a moment then diminished and the bat was gone.

Pete stood beside her. She almost gasped but her fear was internal enough for its force to seal her mouth. He moved fast and soundless for a guy his size, even traveling over this gravel. A finger first over his mouth then pointing back into the shallow recess of their meager shelter. He turned, crawled, and she followed.

Opposite where the bats had hung, all the way against the east wall, they were just out of sight of the entrance itself. Pete scrunched down in the farthest spot and Sue-Min did the same, keeping a full two meters space between them to her left though thus forced to leave herself the barest hair in view of the mouth.

Pete turned to her, whispered —The bats . . . did it get any? I wanted you to see.

—Yes. I saw one get stuck and melt. Poor thing.

—I watched the same thing happen to an owl while I was looking for Ron.
Fuck!

Ron’s unwitnessed yet presumably parallel dissolution filled the silence between them.

He didn’t open his eyes as he half turned toward her to speak. . . Cocky Pete seemed at a loss for once, for a moment at least, arms hanging loose and head tilted up against the arching wall.

She looked full at him. He’d taken charge since she woke or even before but was he conceding now? After a good two minutes he drew a deep breath and spoke—

—My gut is it’ll leave when the sun comes up. Probably just disappear. Fade away back to wherever it came from. We just have to wait it out. Have you got your cellphone?

She shook her head without turning his way. —Left it in the truck. What was the point? No signal out here.