Free Noctuidae by Scott Nicolay Page A

if it’s not direct.
    It wasn’t quite sunlight, but something was changing in the sky, a dim glow visible to either side of the enormous entity. It was an unusual brightness, neither the indigo of twilight nor the poet’s rosy fingered dawn. Nor the sun’s normal clean yellow-white. Something was wrong with this light. Something was off . She couldn’t even put a color to what was more so just less of the dark than any presence of actual light, and offered no direction of origin as far as she could tell. The central bulk that bore the blossom thing grew no clearer, even in contrast at its sides. The blossom itself grew no less bright.
    She glanced at Pete again but he remained concentrated on his watch, his left wrist held close to his face, just below the green tube in his right. Without turning away from it he spoke —You really should come see this, Sue.
    —I’ll pass.
    —Seriously. The hands are all running backwards now. Come see.
    Sue-Min didn’t like the sound of that but she was no way going to get close enough to see for herself. She was just going to have to trust him about the watch. She was pretty sure she could grant him that, at least from a distance. Even if what he said were true what the hell did it mean for them? She could see the sickly glimmer from outside spreading into the cave like a thin liquid spill, but it signified nothing to her yet.
    Sue-Min watched the slow growing glow and Pete watched his watch. The monster remained shapeless, motionless. She glanced at Pete and back and the monster was gone. Fast as that. She missed whether it sank into the canyon or ascended into space. Or blinked out suddenly, faded away slow. . . No sound marked its departure, no flash of light. No wind. Shouldn’t some kind of sonic boom have erupted as air rushed into the space it left empty?
    Pete remained fixated on his watch. She called to him, a little louder than she would’ve dared before.
    —Pete. Pete, look!
    He looked. Paused.
    —What happened? Is it doing something?
    —I think it’s gone . It was sudden. It just . . . blinked out. Well, I blinked and it was gone.
    Pete scrambled toward her. She felt a fresh rush of adrenalin but held her ground. What could she do if he really came at her? She should’ve already grabbed the knife from her pack for protection, or even better the Glock from Ron’s. Too late.
    He passed her without a glance though, arrived at the entrance. From the dripline Pete looked every direction.
    —You’re right. Holy shit. It’s gone. Almost like we dreamed it up.
    He stood and hurled the glowstick into the void. Its arc quickly dropped it from her sight, but she saw Pete’s chin dip as he followed it down.
    —Nothing. It’s really gone.
    He turned to Sue-Min. —Are you ready to get outta here? For all we know it might come back. We should make time while we can.
    Sue-Min was not so sure they should leave the relative safety of the cave. If such a colossus could vanish with neither warning nor coda, how easily could it reappear, catch them in the open? Perhaps that was its plan.
    Yet Pete already had his headlamp on and was over the lip, on his way down. —C’mon! Let’s go!
    She wanted to shout —Wait, call for some discussion of options, seek some consensus, but Pete was on the move and hadn’t given her any chance for talk. And he had the keys to the truck.
    She scrambled to the edge, hung over and called to him. — Wait! Give me a minute! I at least have to put my boots on.
    Already twice her length below he looked up, nodded, said merely —Hurry!
    —What about our packs?
    — Leave the packs. We’ve got to move fast, travel light, get back to the truck as quick as we can. We can pick up our packs when we come back with the cops or whoever. Nobody’s going to touch our stuff here meantime.
    She grabbed her own light from where she’d left it by her pack—safe to use it now she guessed, hoped—began lacing her boots, restrapped her bra. Pete was