Noctuidae (8 page)

—You stay there now.

Through the gloom she saw him cross himself. —Cross my heart. I swear.

Too much adrenalin coursed through her yet to sleep. That and she knew she needed to pee soon. Which had been a problem the entire trip. Earlier she at least had Ron to keep lookout. Now? She could retreat to the corner opposite from Pete—or the entrance—but she had no way to keep him from staring at her all the while. She tensed at the thought of squatting, watching out for Pete spying on her, and trying to get low enough not to spatter. She’d almost rather pee guy style over the edge and take her chances with the monster.

And what about Pete? How long before he too needed to pee? Would he somehow exploit that necessity as an opportunity to expose himself to her—and that exposure to initiate something worse? Their situation made the simplest things suddenly unpleasant and complex.

She could wet herself under her cover, but she wasn’t ready to go that far just yet. If they got out of here they were presumably going to the police or a ranger station, and she didn’t want to go like that. Jeans pee-stained and reeking would not be an asset to her credibility. She considered her options. Pee herself where she sat. Pee at the entrance, which was probably how that thing got Ron. Get as far from Pete as she could to pee, which would not be far in this little cave.

She clenched against an urge fast becoming a throbbing ache, knowing she could hold it only so much longer before the choice would be made for her. Not much longer.

After several minutes fidgeting she turned slowly toward Pete. Just then Pete spoke —I’ve got to take a leak, and I don’t want to go up to the edge, not with that thing out there. Will you look away till I’m done? I’ll do the same for you if you want me to. Promise.

That was unexpected. But he sounded sincere, so far as she could tell. As if
she
wanted to watch
him
anyway. . . Of course he could always rush her if she looked away. And why
shouldn’t
she go first? Then again, if he took his turn without doing anything weird, wouldn’t she feel safer addressing her own need? After a moment to ponder she said
—Okay, deal
, and faced to her right, cheek pressed against the vaguely moist rear wall of the cave. —Just tell me when you’re done, okay?

She heard his boots grind over the pebbles, then faintly his stream as it spattered the wall. She pictured him trying to write his initials or some stupid thing, but knew that probably wasn’t true. He spoke before he was done —Oh shit.

—What? She answered but did not turn.

—It just hit me. Arizona doesn’t
do
daylight savings time. It’s still an hour earlier here.

—What time is your phone set to? Mountain or Arizona? It doesn’t matter unless you changed it for here.

—No. It’s still set for Albuquerque. Mountain.

—Then sunrise should be around when we’re expecting it. Pause. —Can I turn around now?

Faint, she heard him zip up. —Yeah, yeah, go ahead. I’m done.

—Check your phone. What’s it say?

She turned now, watched him struggle to dredge the device from his pocket. Then he found it, flicked it open and thumbed it on. And waited. For nothing. —It’s dead.

He tucked it back in his pocket and slumped as he sat, for several seconds his outline dissolving even further in the shadows, and then he came straight again sudden enough to make her jerk backward even though he was nowhere close.

—I’m going to get something out of my pack, okay? I promise I won’t come near you, so stay cool. I’ll go over, get it out, and come back here. No screaming, okay?

She could tell he was watching her, waiting.

—Okay. But go slow. Only not too slow. Get it done and go back.

He began to crawl toward the pack. She pushed back against the wall as far as she could go. It was only once he’d actually begun to rummage in his pack that she remembered he might have a gun. She sucked in a gasp just as he held up his prize.

—Got it!

—Got what? If he had the Glock out, she didn’t want to play games. Best to establish new ground rules right away. They both knew he wouldn’t dare shoot it here.

—Glowstick. He began to back up toward his corner.

Something drained from inside Sue-Min and she almost laughed. A spasm ran through her and she had to fight off the shakes, but when she realized he still might’ve got his gun out too, ice water welled up to refill the vacuum within her and she calmed.

When she looked over she saw the cold green glow already defining Pete’s face, his knees up to block the light from the cave mouth all he could. Then he shook his head.
—What the fuck?

—What?

—My watch says
9:12
.
No way
is that right. We haven’t been here
that
freakin’ long. The sun would be up, it wouldn’t matter
what
time zone,
what
canyon we’re down.

She struggled to process this new frustration. The only timepiece left to them and it had run amok. Nothing was working right. Everything was breaking down. On top of that she still had to go.
Now.

—Okay, so while you’re figuring that out, it’s my turn to pee. Will you do the same for me?

—The same what?

—As I did for you. Promise not to watch while I pee.

Several seconds of silence then —Yeah yeah, of course. Fair’s fair.

—If you don’t I’ll—

—You’ll scream. I know. I won’t look. Promise.

She doubted him but she had no more choice. She made her way around the wall, skirting the moth wings, to the place she calculated as furthest from Pete. She squatted so as to face him, keep some kind of lookout, but far as she could tell in the dark, he kept his word.

Finished, she realized the only paper they’d brought remained buried in Ron’s pack. Shuffling over there dripping with pants around ankles was not an option, so with wiping a lost cause, she waited and wiggled as many long seconds as she dared before she tugged up her jeans and underwear and scuttled back to her sleeping bags, feeling that much more unclean.

Yet sleep still would not come. Sue-Min continued watching Pete though she saw little more than his blurred dim form. Of all the people to be stuck with in this insane situation. Of course, she’d seen him enough to know that he
was
decent looking, in a corn fed white guy kind of way. Sort of guy who was destined for a career in sales if he didn’t become a fireman or a cop. Sandy blond buzz cut, bulked out biceps. He’d go to fat once he had a family, but he didn’t and hadn’t yet. Stamina would be his best quality in bed. This was a guy who could do pushups for an hour. If only he weren’t such a creeper. Yuck.

She shuddered to shake off that train of thought and marshaled her mental focus back to priorities. They might both die here. How long could they survive? They had, she guessed, half a water bottle each plus maybe a backup liter stowed. She knew she did, was pretty sure about Ron. A handful of Clif bars stashed in their packs, possibly some other food too. Her pack held a little Ziploc of walnut halves, another of carrot sticks. That was all. She was pretty sure Pete packed some jerky, and Ron had maybe brought a couple foil-wrapped single serving vacuum packs of salmon or tuna that should still be in his pack. And the worse than useless popcorn. Even if they could make a fire. . . She shuddered at the thought of those tiny explosions in their deliberate silence.

If they stayed trapped for long, water would be their problem before food. She’d noted several fuzzy streaks of algae along the back wall that meant slow trickling seeps, imagined taking turns with Pete licking dirty water from the wall, each of them fighting not to gag or puke. Could she even do it? Could Pete? How thirsty would they have to be first? And would the seeps be enough? No water pooled below them, so the flow could only be agonizing slow.

Pete interrupted her speculations —I’m thinkin’ if this thing outside isn’t gone in half an hour, I’m goin’ out anyway, gonna try to sneak past it, over it, under it, whatever. She saw the faint illumination of the glowstick brush his face. —I don’t think it’s even. . .

He broke off and slid to his knees then drooped as if deflating till his forehead touched the pebbly floor, groaning a low pained groan all the way down. Sue-Min rose and stepped toward him, closed the gap by near half, but went no closer. He might be feigning only to fool her —Pete? Pete, are you all right?

He took a long time to respond, groaning again before he half-rose and spoke. —My watch. Please tell me it’s fucked up. It only says 9:15. It’s been way more than three minutes since I checked it. What the hell? What’s going on?

—Either way shouldn’t the sun be up?

—That’s what I mean. We should have sun but we don’t. It’s like time is speedin’ up and slowin’ down.

—Now you’re talking crazy.

—Am I? Then
you
explain this shit. First it’s four in the morning, then all of a sudden it’s
nine
. Then half an hour, maybe an hour passes, but it’s only three minutes on my watch. What’s causin’ that? That thing might be weavin’ a
web
out of time . . . or maybe it just inhabits some kind of
time vortex
it found, and it sits like an ant lion in its pit, waitin’ for its next victim. Which tonight just happens to be us. Or this morning, whichever it really is. . .

—The sun’s got to come up sometime. I mean, we
are
in a cave, in a canyon. It’s going to take a while longer here, that’s all. Don’t you think the sky looks lighter outside now? I think it does, a little. Most likely your watch is screwed up. Maybe you bumped it climbing up here.

—I didn’t bump it. And it was workin’ fine before.

—Well whatever. Maybe these rocks have a high magnetic content, maybe they’re messing with your watch. I’ve heard of caves in El Malpais like that, where a compass doesn’t work. Whatever it is, there has to be a natural explanation.

—Oh yeah?
Does that thing outside have a natural explanation?

—Maybe. Maybe we just don’t know the explanation yet.

—Bull-
shit!
That
thing
is a demon or an alien or something from another dimension. There’s nothing rational or natural about it!

—Come on Pete. I’m scared as you are, but we’ve got to keep it together. Talking about demons isn’t doing either of us any good. We should be talking about how we’re going to get out of here.

—Okay, fine. Hey Sue-
Min
, do you know how we’re gonna get out of here?

—I still think your idea of waiting till sunrise was a good one.

—Except maybe there isn’t going to
be
any sunrise. Not for us.

—There has to be.
It’s just late because of our location, the canyon, the cave. . .

Pete rested hunched now, haunches on calves, knuckles of his clenched fists jammed down amidst the pebbles.

—What if the sun
never
rises? What if we’re caught in this monster’s vortex forever?

—What if we wait just a little longer and see if the sun comes up and the monster goes away? Isn’t that worth waiting for, when we can walk right out of here, maybe even find Ron? It was your idea anyway.

Pete just shook his head and groaned some more. For several reasons she was trying to keep up a tough front but his apparent collapse wasn’t helping. Not one bit. The truth was his comments had begun to get to her, especially his forecast of unending darkness. Shivering, she hugged herself, hoped he didn’t see.

Sue-Min told herself Pete’s watch was just bumped or broken. It might even start spinning backward next—and if it did, would it take them back to when Ron was still with them? Or were the movements of its damaged hands altogether meaningless, irrelevant to their current situation, the malfunction simply coincidence?

Pete rocked in place, spoke a cryptic sentence
—I say to myself that the earth is extinguished, though I never saw it lit.

Sue-Min shivered. —What the hell was that about?

He turned to her. —It’s from this play I was in, back in my UNM days. Beckett. I have this jones you know, for nerdy smart girls, and one I dated for a while was a theater major. She had this idea I’d be a good actor, kept pushing me to try out for plays she was producing. I finally did and got a part in this Beckett thing. It was weird shit—I played this guy in a wheelchair who kept a bloody handkerchief over his face most of the time. I still remember most of my lines though. My memory’s good like that.

Sue-Min struggled to wrap her thoughts around the image of Pete the thespian but it was too much for her to process. Her mind was already overloaded and all she really wanted to do was go back to sleep, return to the sleeping bag whose upper half still smelled like Ron. Was this faint and fading fragrance all she had left, all that remained? She could not accept that. Ron was resilient, Ron was Ron. Unless she saw definite evidence of his death, she would keep holding out hope he was still alive. And probably needing their help if he was. . .