Noctuidae (6 page)

—Pete No!
Her compressed stage whisper came out almost loud enough to echo, but he hesitated less than a second at the sound. He did hesitate though. She didn’t miss that. He was fully on her now, hands reaching for the edges of the sleeping bag to tug it down. As she fought back panic a last inspiration came.

—Stop or I’ll scream and that thing will hear us! Won’t it? I think you know somehow. You know more about that thing than you’re letting on.

At once he clamped his hand over her mouth again, slid his hips over hers altogether. She could feel his erection against her belly now. Hard as it was, his cock felt small—compared to Ron’s anyway—and Ron’s was only average. She didn’t want to feel any more of Pete’s than she felt this moment.

Sue-Min struggled best she could, sought to squeeze out a scream between Pete’s thick-linked fingers. No luck. Her breath hissed heavily through her nose. The way he held her she could barely move.

Pete’s free hand slid across her chest, groped at her breasts, left then right, his attempt grotesquely clumsy since she’d unsnapped her bra when she first lay down with Ron and it still hung loose beneath her shirt, cups crumpling under Pete’s fingers and frustrating his efforts to reach her nipples. He arched off her a fraction as if to give himself room to maneuver. She floundered as he fondled her but proprioception identified her only free move as toppling to her right—which did not seem advisable as it would allow him to pin her facedown to the pebbly floor.

Pete fumbled for the metal snap at her waistband now, and this required him to rise off her a bit more. Within that interval she brought her arms up, pressed forearms to his chest and shoved hard, and once he lost his balance and flailed, she used his body for leverage to rise and jerked her legs from under him as well. He fell back as she shot up, only to catch her feet in the sleeping bag so she tumbled almost right back on top of him. He flailed his left arm across her chest but she rolled away, pulling free of the bag, ended on all fours several feet from Pete. Without thought she scrambled toward the cave mouth, ignoring the pain as the more jagged of the river pebbles dug under her kneecaps, into her palms. Pete rolled over as well and came after her. This time
she
was faster. A meter from the dripline she spun and flopped on her haunches, pointed both index fingers at her open mouth, said loud as she dared
—Come any closer and I will scream!
Pete froze where he was, a few feet off, still crouched on all fours.

—This is
not
happening. It is not! She spoke with authority despite the continuing quaver in her voice. —Now back up against the wall or I. Will. Scream!
I will!

—C’mon Sue . . . you don’t wanna do that!

—My name is Sue-
Min
you asshole, and don’t tell me what I want to do. I’ll tell
you
how it’s going to be from here out. Now back up into that south corner of the cave, past where the bats were.

Whatever Pete did or did not know about the hearing and habits of the thing outside, it appeared the threat of her scream held genuine sway over him. She knew it was likely a doomsday weapon, mutual assured destruction, but he seemed genuinely afraid she would deploy it.

—Okay, okay. Just don’t do anything stupid. And he actually began backing toward the corner just like she directed him, resembling some squat wretched sea creature on his hands and knees. If she could read his face in the gloom, what would she see revealed? Anger? Resentment? Guilt? Confusion? Fear? A mix perhaps, though she guessed mostly fear. She’d struck on something. But how long could she extract leverage from her threat?

Pete backed up, passive aggressive and slow, but after a couple minutes he reached the wall in the corner. There he sat and leaned his head against the stone’s coarse arc, his eyes aimed toward the low domed roof.

Sue-Min brought her knees up and hugged them to her chest as if to muffle the sound of her galloping heart. This position helped some to still the tremors that shook her. How impossible could her situation be, trapped between a rapist and something a thousand times larger? She’d achieved a stalemate with Pete for the moment, but how long would it last? Certainly he’d be on top of her if she nodded off half a minute. Thought of the vigil she would have to maintain turned her empty stomach acid. Adrenalin had helped her thus far, still held her, and now it brought rage.

—Did you call that thing up, Pete? Did you summon it here?

His hesitation registered to Sue-Min as surprise . . . surprise she guessed the truth? Surprise at her accusation? Surprise a 114 pound woman got the better of him, backed him down? What had he done to women before, other women who had no threat to hold over him, no weapon for protection?

He didn’t answer, simply stared upward. Not as if she expected a reply.

His silence made her nervous though, so she took a different tack —What’s your phone say now?

He continued to stare at the stone ceiling for maybe five Miss’ippi, then pulled the phone from his pocket and flicked it on. After a minute its pale glow coated his face and he read aloud —4:19. We’ve still got a ways to go.

A pause.

—I wasn’t going to hurt you, you know. Just the opposite. I could make you feel happy, help you forget this situation. Help us both.
If
you weren’t so fuckin’ uptight. How come you got to be such a bitch?

She considered his insult, its definition as he saw it—
bitch, (n)—any woman who declines sex with any man any time.
Her reply was simple—she pointed again at her mouth with one hand, gestured toward the entrance with the other. As loud as she dared yet soft as she could she said —I
will
scream. Pete was barely a vague blur now, but she could sense the tension in his folded arms. Nod off for a minute though, and that’s all he would need.

And outside was the creature, the thing, the unimaginable enormity that presumably devoured Ron. She sat now with her back to it. On its very doorstep even. This was not the best thought out plan, but she hadn’t had a whole lot of time to think. Pete had forced her to act and she had acted. Maybe she was lucky to be where she was. Or maybe she’d only scrambled out of the frying pan
Fuck oh fuck oh fuck this was all so wrong.
Yet except for the monster, it was nothing new in her life—how many times had she escaped one toxic relationship only to hurl herself into the arms of another? And creepy guys pulled this shit on her all the time.

The thought struck her—not for the first time—there was a discontinuity between her image of herself as independent, a free spirit, and her tendency to slide from one relationship right to the next. To define herself through relationships. Bad ones.

Ron, though . . . Ron was different. Not perfect—he could be neglectful, especially around Pete or his other male friends.
Especially around Pete.
Why Ron felt the need to impress this guy so much she did not understand, but in the three months they’d been dating she often took a backseat to Pete. She’d come to see it as the price she paid to be with a guy who didn’t hurt her, didn’t hit her, didn’t talk down to her. Seemed to like her for who she was, not for the shape of her eyes, her nation of origin. Never said
Five dollah make me hollah
when he wanted to fuck. She’d actually been with guys who waved a fiver at her in the bedroom and thought they were funny. More than a couple. She could picture Pete pulling that trick. But not Ron.

Adrenalin faded and she already felt drowsy, despite the menace behind and the menace ahead. She might as well talk to Pete, make conversation. At least that way she’d know he was also awake.

—What else did you see outside? Did you see what that thing did to Ron?

No answer.

—What about this cave? Did you know it was here before we started out? Was this your destination the whole entire time?

No answer.

—C’mon Pete. You said we’ve got to work together to survive. If we’re supposed to be a team, don’t you think you can at least tell me the truth? How much of this did you plan ahead?

At last Pete broke his silence —You think you’re so smart.

—No. . .

—Yes you do. You think you’re like Charlie Chan’s Number One Daughter. I’ll tell you what—you don’t know a goddamn thing. You can’t see inside my mind.

—Trust me, I don’t
want
to see inside your mind. . . All I did was ask you a couple questions.

—Well, they’re stupid questions. How ‘bout you focus on how we’re gonna get outta here, okay?

She risked a glance over her right shoulder, up the wall of darkness to the shimmering pinwheel overhead. It seemed closer now, such that she viewed the veiny array almost from its lower edge. She turned farther, halfway round. The sections of the tremendous fan resembled the blades of a windmill, though its blades or petals were more numerous and didn’t spin, only rippled a bit in a breeze she could not feel. Captivating, fascinating, like seaweed beneath a shallow sea. She found it hard to look away. She had to.

She spun back toward Pete. He’d made no move closer but seemed poised now, knees arched and knuckles pressed against the gravelly cave floor.

That was how it was going to be. All the way to sunrise at least. She needed a string with bells. Or a fence, preferably electric. And if she did doze off, would she awake as she fell? She needed some siren, some alarm, something that would go off if her grip relaxed. A sound grenade. The problem with those ideas was they would likely call the thing down on her. That and they were impossible from the start.

—What else do you know about this thing, Pete?

He turned to her slow. —Not a damn thing.

—Sure you do. You know it hunts by sound.

—I never said that.

—But you’re scared of noise attracting it.

—Maybe I’m just being careful—like you should be.

—We’ve got to pass the time for a couple more hours at least. Why don’t we play a game?

—Oh, what, like
I spy with my little eye maybe . . . something beginning with F—fucking giant monster?

—I don’t know, I thought more like charades.

—Please, Sue-
Min
, could you just try and keep quiet, and not make any sudden gestures?

—So you
do
know something about this thing and its habits. . .

—I’m just trying to be cautious. Maybe
you
could try too.

—Maybe I should’ve been more cautious when you were trying to rape me, how about that?

—Ha! You know you want it. Even now when you’re playing hard to get. It’s not rape when you’re into it.

—How the hell am I into it?

—You’ve been coming on to me from Day One.
I left you alone till now out of respect to Ron, but Ron’s gone and we may not live to see the morning ourselves, so why not stop playing games and enjoy what time we have?

—How do you know for sure Ron’s gone? Did you see what happened to him?

—He’s not here. Where else would he be? Do you think he’d run away on us? Head back to the truck alone and leave us behind to deal with this craziness?

—Ron wouldn’t do that. But now she wondered—could Ron still be alive? Had he found time to escape when the thing first appeared outside? Could it be he was going for help even now? But Ron didn’t have the truck keys—far as she knew they remained in Pete’s pocket. Who could he ask for help—the ranchers? They might just as likely shoot him on sight if he came knocking on their door at night. Ron wasn’t leaving the canyon then.

She saw Pete nod in the gloom. —That’s right. Where would he go anyway? Good luck with those ranchers. They wanted to shoot us the first time. How do you think they’d react if any of us showed up outside in the middle of the night?

—Let’s change the subject. We don’t know for sure where Ron is, so we shouldn’t get carried away. Maybe he’s waiting at the truck. Maybe he’s trapped across the canyon. Maybe we’ll find him in the morning.

—No, let’s be real here. Ron is
gone
. Gone, gone, gone. Most likely
dead
. One way or another he ain’t coming back. It’s time for you to face that fact.

—You don’t know that!

—It’s obvious! How can you ignore it?

—Because I know Ron better than you.

—Oh really? Is that what you think? Who’s known him since grade school? Who knows the name of the girl he lost his virginity to and where it happened? Who taught him how to shoot a .45? Who’s lost count of the backcountry hikes we’ve taken together—up till now all without you?

As he said this Pete had begun to crawl forward on knuckles and knees. He moved slowly as if he thought she would not notice that way.

—Whoa right there Pete. Whoa and back up.

He froze but held his position, several feet forward of where he’d been before he began his little monologue.