A taxi took us from the restaurant. The roadways hummed with bustle, and the seething air danced on the tarmac, swaying their translucent hips. We skirted the suburbs then, and hit the back roads, following the faint curves and dips of the landscape. Far away, I could just make out the furrowed mass of Death Valley national park, darkling hills the color of wet sand.
The car let us off at a trailhead. I opened the door for Tamara and she stepped out like an old-world explorer. Gunther got out and hiked his leg onto a rock, to tie his bootlaces. Then we slung on our backpacks and I hiked up my jeans while the taxi hummed away.
Somewhere in the drybrush, I could hear some kind of bird. Loggerhead shrikes, or a roadrunner. Two wooden poles marked the e As I stared out the bay window, I Over the paciRainclouds over the pacitific ocean laid their burden of spaFaroaway gulls wheeled in the rainstorm. Theiir voices came to me on the wind, distant .shrill Overhead, stormclouds clBright clouds lairained let a mist fall., around them. White shapes in the pale sky. like strokes of a paintbrush.. Higher on the island, underneath the traintracks, m y apartment looked onto the same sky.ntrance. Tamara shared a look with me, as if to reconstitute our agreement.
I took the bleached rocky path and zigzagged down the hill. Tamara came behind me, under Gunther’s watchful eye.
Benji waited at the base of the foothills, leaning on a jeep. His jeep was black, and the sand was tinted red, racing away for miles into the desert. The hand of night spread shadows across the sand.
When we got close, Benji started the car.
I shoved my bag in the back seat. Tamara was shaking Benji’s outstretched hand. He and Gunther shared only a nod. The evening wind swept around us, and I scanned the horizon for stormclouds.
“They won’t roll in until after dark,” Benji stood beside me and spoke softly. Tamara and Gunther were loading their gear.
I nodded.
“No problem getting here?”
I shook my head, shielding my eyes from the glare off the silver jeep. “Just took a cab.”
“Here.” Benji handed me a pair of sunglasses. Then he squirted sunscreen into his palm and started lathering his face, nodding to the bottle on the hood of the jeep.
“Hey, thank you.” Benji was silent. “I know I asked a lot of you, and haven’t given you a satisfactory explanation, or any explanation really.”
He shrugged. “You could have lied and said you were curious. Tamara is paying handsomely for this favor. I probably would have said yes.” He handed me the sunscreen.
“Maybe I should have lied.” Cracking open the bottle I squirted some of the lotion into my palm.
“A lie would have saved me the nerves. Hell, if I didn’t know what you were working on now, I might have taken you at face value.”
“This isn’t about that.”
“Don’t lie now.”
“What do you want me to say?”
“I assume you’re just trying to protect me, by lying.”
I nodded.
“If anyone asks, I had no idea what you were doing last Fall. I visited you twice because I missed you. We talked shop about your writing. I’m not stupid.”
“Thanks.”
“Who’s gonna be asking?”
“Academics, I think. The Shoemaker estate.”
“The Gene Shoemaker estate?”
“Maybe some others, too. I don’t think they’d hurt you.”
“They might throw common rock specimens at me.” Benji ran the fingers of one hand through his hair. “Are you going away after tonight? I mean—”
“Yeah.”
“Thought so.”
I shook my head. “I’m gonna lay low.”
Tamara was hollering and waved us over to the jeep. Benji took me by the shoulder and looked at me. His eyes moved over my face. Then he nodded. “You’ll be good.
He clapped me on the shoulder as I walked toward the jeep.
Gunther sat in back, with his gun out, running his fingers over the seams and knobs while he stared out the window. Tarmara crossed her legs and stared out the windshield, over my shoulder. I stared into the sunset like it was the last soft thing. As we drove, night fell, and I felt as if we had arrived. Night wasn’t just a time between dusk and dawn anymore. It was a place, and I had got there. As the sun set, its horizontal beams seemed to pierce the clouds ineffectually. The density of the storm had increased. At night the clouds lost all color, became dark, heavy shapes in the night sky.
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Huge shapes loomed out of the darkness. Benji sped past them, knowing them to be stones, slowing only to let roadrunners or owls shake off the fright, and pad quietly off the road. In our headlights, the road seemed plain and quiet. The night air rushed through the open windows. But I began to feel that something was behind us, giving a wide berth, moving back and forth across the sand.
At last, Benji parked the jeep in the shadow of a large crag. There were lights at the top. Stepping out, the sand was hot under my feet. I could see it on my bare ankles. Before I followed Benji, I looked behind me, but I saw nothing in the dark. Nothing moved unless it were the sand, stirred by a night wind.
Steep concrete stairs climbed the side of the observatory. At the top we found a wide area of flattened stone. A few buildings, with metal sheathing and metal roofs, which were locked to the public. At the far side of the platform were a few tents, and a huge gleam of metal. It was a telescope, on a huge mount, two feet in diameter and fifteen feet long. Its shape reminded me of a cannon, but here in the desert it seemed at home. Heavy white sheets hung over the ends, and a few nerdy looking campers milled around the base. These would be Benji’s friends. As we made our way to the campsite, Benji explained that the observatory was built in the months leading up to the 1948 supermoon, as part of a university project. The head of the astronomy program had been Gene Shoemaker, and there on the side of the telescope was a plaque with his name. The plaque was made of meteoric iron, and fastened with rivets that had been manufactured for the Prospector, which had carried Gene’s ashes to the moon. The observatory had been dedicated to him, and now it was a memorial to him.
Overhead, storm clouds had filled the sky. It was no longer possible to discern their movement. “Should be clearing up soon,” Benji said, by way of greeting his friends, but his mouth was twisted into a frown.
Somewhere above those clouds, the moon was rising. Invisible, it drew closer and closer to earth. From our perspective it would begin to grow. But for now we could see nothing of its movements.
Pushing inside one the far tent, Benji tossed his clipboard onto the table, picked up his notebook, and began his final preparations, telling me with a nod that I was free to move about.
Tamara and Gunther stepped aside for a short while and spoke together. They joined me soon after in Benji’s tent. Gunther entered first and held the tent flap for Tamara. Under the lantern, she looked older, or seemed older. I waited for her to make eye contact. I raised an eyebrow. She nodded back, as if to say, “All is prepared.” But I still did not know how she planned to kill herself. She would not tell me.
Benji found us in the tent. “Take some rest. I’ll wake you up when it’s time. We’re all gonna nap, and then it’s coffee and moon-watching.”
But I couldn’t sleep. The wiry cot dug into my hip and ribcage, and soon gusts of wind whipped the tent walls.
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
When I woke up, all was silent. Outside, a steady rainfall tapped against the tent. Further off, it plinked on the metal roofing. Something urgent leapt in me, and I sat up, wide awake. Tamara lay in the back, snoring softly. Gunther was there too, with his back against the wooden crates. Also asleep.
The lanterns were lit outside, and swinging in the wind. I could see them through the wall of the tent.
Careful not to make any sound, I slid out of my cot and walked barefoot on the tent floor. The cement was hard underneath the nylon fabric. Ducking out of the tent I blinked in the lantern light. I saw the telescope, uncovered. Benji and a few of his friends were adjusting the angle. Steaming coffee mugs sat on a white plastic folding table next to the telescope, collecting rainwater.
I turned away from the telescope and scanned the darkness that sat beyond the lantern light. The land was flat and rocky on every side. Faraway cliffs laid long shadows across the desert like dark blankets. Without really thinking I took off walking.
The sand was dark and warm, but its gloom was only a product of the night. Underneath its, the sand was the color of plaster. It was placed here by the wind, carried here from parts unknown to cover the ground. Rain pattered against the surface of the desert with a hollow sound.
I thought of scorpions poised in the upper sands, and owls that run on two legs hiding in their burrows. Nameless things were alive out there, things that weren’t scorpions, owls, or insects. I thought of the wind, the clouds, the stones in the ground. All these moved, or sat quietly in the dark. And me, I realized. And the creatures of the desert would be watching us, watching me, the wind, and the clouds, travel across her face.
It was at this time the tombstone appeared in the desert. Ahead, in the shadow of the cliffs I saw it. A black gavestone in the sand. Moss huddled around it, a thin sheen of moss grew over it, like the moss that grew on the moon. I could not tell which way it faced, but as I drew closer, the tombstone turned into the shape of a man, and the man held a bundle in his arms.
Back and forth he swayed in the shadow of the cliffs.
Fear latched onto me. I dropped to my belly, pressing myself into the sand. I made no sound, but turned my head to look. The man was walking towards me, slowly, talking to himself. He had been watching me. The blood rushed through me. I fought—I strained against my own hesitation. Run—RUN I screamed inside my body. The voice ran on, measuring itself, meandering in and out of hearing, pulling part of me with it. I recalled a voice, speaking out of the blind night while I stood alone on my balcony, under the thundering traintacks. Again in the shadow of a bridge. A voice that lulled me like a hollow drug and—
He was closer now. My stomach writhed. A knot of fear tightening to pain. I needed to double over. Heave. But I stayed, stock still on the sand. Like I was cast in concrete. No movements escaped. All my pain went inward. I reeled. I became aware of places he had touched me while I lay on the bridge, helpless. Places I had not remembered until now. I could hear his voice clearly now, voice was thick and breathless.
Overhead the clouds began to part. The moon appeared, huge and ominous. Rain began to fall out of the blackness overhead, where no clouds were.
Tombstone set the bundle on the sand, and it stood up. A small, wrinkled man, painfully thin staggered to his feet. A single hand clung absentmindedly to the sorcerer’s pant-leg. His eyes were far away, gazing that way and that. A mote of recognition flashed across my mind. By a sense older than sight I saw who it was, I thought he was about the right age, wasn’t he.
Tombstone’s fingers closed around my throat. The moment he touched me, I soiled myself. My body had no words. I could not move. So I soiled myself again. The smell absorbed me, sickening. But the cold hand squeezed harder. Vomit crept up my throat but could no longer exit my throat where Tombstone's fingers held tight. My veins slammed against his grip. Then my vision went dark. It happened all at once. But the muscles in my groin convulsed, without relief. My arteries strained against their walls. The blood was all I had left that could move.
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I was back in the tent. Tamara lay on her cot beneath me.
“It’s time,” I said to myself. “It’s past the time. We have to do it now. Tamara?” I shook her once, hard. She didn’t move.
“Here’s fine,” she must have said. I couldn't remember where I’d been until this moment. She had gone on, “Before I begin, I have to remind you it’s risky. The human body is designed to perform certain functions, and what you’re about to do, what I’m about to do to you, will require us to step outside the normal functions of the body. But don’t wait,” she had said. “I’m ready. I dreamed it was already done. Do you fully understand what I’m saying? There is a real chance I’ll experience some type of medical emergency. Gunther’s bandaids and ibuprofen won’t help me.”
My hands were on her. I had put them down on instinct. Feeling her. The muscles shook all through her body. She was dying. I did not have any evidence to prove this. I simply arrived at the conclusion with a silent desperate cry. She was dying now, and I could not remember what I’d done. The rain whipped itself into a fury. Thunder roared until my ears rang. Her body twitched. I stood up, shaking, my hands in the air as if to drive away any personal responsibility for the woman who lay at my feet. ‘I may never fully recover,’ she had said. ‘Even if I live.’
At a sudden splatter of rain across the tent floor, I whirled around. Gunther stood in the doorway, drenched and dripping with rain. The tent flap fell shut behind him. He swayed. His nose was dripping blood. His eyes were wide. “Something’s out there.” His voice sent a shiver down my spine. I noticed the gun at his hip, no longer bothering to conceal it. “Is it done?”
I couldn’t say. Gunther looked at Tamara lying on the bed. He knelt beside her and rocked her gently by the shoulder. His face was close to hers, listening, sensing for breath.
“Gunther, what’s out there?”
Gunther looked up at me, his lip curled back in a sob of fear. “We need to leave. Right now.”
With two hands, he lifted Tamara’s body into a sitting position. Then he breathed, thinking. With one hand, he lifted the gun from his holster and handed it to me. He did not look me in the eye. The gun was heavier than mine.
With a single smooth motion, Gunther lifted Tamara into his arms, and pushed out of the tent.
The rain slashed in all directions, drenching me. Shivering, I staggered after Gunther across the camp. I grasped the gun tight. A wreck lay in the middle of the tents. The telescope lay on its side, shattered lenses strewn across the concrete. The tents strained against their rope ties. The jeep sat down below the stairs at the far end of the camp, rocking gently in the huge gusts of wind. From above it looked like a toy car. The wind it seemed had nothing to block its path, and gained momentum across the entire desert to slam into the camp and everyone around it.
I changed to glance upward, and shrank down in fear. The moon hung over the desert, through a hole in the clouds, huge and threatening. Wrenching myself away from the sight I ran toward the van. I could hear shouts through the rain, and someone screamed.
Propping Tamara into the back seat, Gunther leapt into the driver’s side. I climbed in beside Tamara, and propped her head against my shoulder. Buckling my seatbelt, I held her close against me to keep her from rocking too much. I could feel her body, cold and clammy, but her head was hot against my shoulder, hot like a fever.
Turning the jeep, Gunther slammed the gas. The tires spun and then we lurched forward and sped across the sand.
Soon the buzz of the tires and the rhythmic pelt of rain against the windshield lulled us all into gasping silence. My heart still raced, and I could hear Gunther, breathing hard and fast as he peered through the haze of raindrops and mist.
Something brushed my arm and I screamed. Wrenching against my seatbelt I pulled away. In the dark, I could see nothing. Even the light from the headlights was dimmed by raindrops. The cab was utterly black. But I could feel something on Tamara, like a thick fur thing pressing against me where Tamara had been. I shoved it away, but flinched at the touch, and a stench wafted off of it.
When I looked again, Tamara appeared as she was. I could dimly make out her face in the light from the headlights. The rain had diminished, and Tamara snored softly. I could hear her now.
When Gunther finally pulled to a stop, he let his head fall slowly onto the steering wheel. Staying there he breathed slowly. Pulling the door open, I stepped out into the mud and was sick. I wretched again and again. When I was done, I leaned against the jeep.
I heard a door open and shut, and Gunther came around the hood. He put a hand on my shoulder. Then he took the gun out of my hand. I had forgotten I was holding it. Then he raised his arm and fired. I flinched. One, two, three. The bullets cracked into the mud. Four, five, six. I started to sob.
Then he holstered the gun at his hip. After a while he took me by the shoulders and wrapped his arms around me. I shook. When I stopped crying he let go, and we stared at each other in the feeble light. The sun was rising far away. The moon was gone.
Back in the jeep Tamara lay fast asleep.
“She looks peaceful,” Gunther said.
I nodded. I realized I had never seen her asleep. Gunther must have seen it a thousand times.
“Whatever happened in the tent… Think it worked?”
“She’s alive, so…”
“But did you accomplish what you set out to do?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know. I don’t even know how to tell.”
“We saw shapes in the desert, outside the light of the campfires. Geometric patterns in the desert, like the sand wasn’t sand at all, but a field of magnetic dust like I’ve seen at smaller scale in a science lab.”
“What?”
“The desert was making shapes,” Gunther said again. “I figured it had something to do with you. Shapes. I don’t know how else to explain it. I don’t know the name for those patterns except that in the end, it formed a kind of fractal spiral around our camp. And that’s when I saw things moving. I thought it was desert animals that burrow, coming up out of the sand. I thought they were probably scared, because the sand was moving over their burrows. Maybe it messed up their burrows. But they weren’t animals. They weren’t small enough. They were like…”
Gunther’s face was taught. “They were like people, crawling out of the sand. They were gone when I came out of the tent with you. They were crawling toward the tent when I went in.” There was no jest in Gunther’s face. No trace of irony.
At last the sun broke over the hills, and heat spilled over the valley. The chill air mingled with the sunlight, and I shivered, but this time I let myself shake, and I shook for a long time, shivering and sometimes laughing for no reason as I paced around the jeep.
At last Gunther and I drove on. When we found the paved road, he followed it to the gate, where a sleepy ranger let us through with a dazed look.
It was at this time that Tamara woke up. Her sleep had been long and deep, and when she spoke, it was to no one in perticular, but her eyes and her voice were clear. “It’s done.”