The sky was bright with stars shinning down on an empty desert. Katy thought about the art supplies in her bag, wondering if she’d ever be able to capture a night like this, the way the Milky Way formed a river of light. She wasn’t much of a painter. She tried but she was better with pencils. ‘I’ll have to use shades of grey and white,’ she thought as she composed in her head even though there wasn’t time. 

She took another careful step down the hillside. Something moved, leaving a trail of dust across the rocky soil. A rabbit darting away. It reminded her that this place wasn’t empty and that she didn’t trust it. The stars may be pretty, but they made shadows on the barbed bushes and sand-blasted stones, dark places where venomous things hid, rattlesnakes, scorpions and other terrible creatures waiting in ambush. 

Behind her, a pale dome stuck out from the side of a high bluff like a swollen sore on the top of the mesa. It didn’t seem all that different from the observatory at Kitt’s Peak six hours to the south, but it was. 

A dark scar marked its white surface where there’d been an explosion a few nights before. Katy didn’t know much about telescopes, but she was certain they didn’t explode or shake the ground the way this one did. Occasionally they were supposed to open and look at the stars. This one never had.

Katy was too far down the hill to see the fences, buildings, and trailers that’d been her home for the last few weeks. She wasn’t going to miss any of it. 

Watching her footing, she thought, ‘it’d be a shame to turn back because of a twisted ankle.’ Not far away, a dirt road cut up the side of the mesa, bending and turning like a snake, as it followed the slope. That’s where she was heading to meet Troy, her sort-of boyfriend. 

Troy tried hard enough, but she refused to formally call them a couple. Tonight was a prime example. He’d driven hours from San Diego to help her escape. He’d been two years ahead of her in high school, graduating this June, but that didn’t matter, because according to her dad, Katy was too young to date anyone. Good thing the professor was never around. 

For two years her father had been out here in the desert, building this place while she and her brother Ben stayed with family. Ben had proven to be too much to handle for their aunt. He’d probably be too much for an entire marine detachment. Her little brother had issues, but he had his uses too. He was the one who found the hole in the fence making tonight’s escape possible.  

She looked down, seeing the headlights of Troy’s truck parked off to the side of the road. ‘What am I doing’ played in her head like a broken record. ‘True, she no longer wanted to be marooned in the desert, and true, she liked Troy, but was she really running off with him?’ She shook her head, no. ‘That’s not what this was.’ She thought of her aunt, wondering if she could convince her to let her stay with her again. Honestly, the only reason her dad wanted Katy out here was to take care of Ben. She was a babysitter for a fifteen-year-old that her dad had no idea how to deal with him.

Katy got low, sitting on her backside as gravel tumbled under her while she scooted down the last stretch of hill. She got to her feet on the dirt road that was better suited for horses, dusting herself off as she walked towards the truck.

It was such a quiet night that all she could hear was the gravel still slipping behind her. She approached the truck, wondering why Troy hadn’t gotten out yet. Maybe he was asleep. His pick-up was small and old with 4X4 blazoned across the tailgate. 

Katy squeezed between the hill and the truck’s side. When she got to the cab, she looked inside and found it empty. The window was down and the faint scent of an air freshener came out, along with a whiff of body spray. Honestly, she didn’t understand why guys wore that stuff.

 She looked around, wondering if Troy had gone to take a leak or something. Then she touched the hood, feeling the heat from the still warm engine. “Troy are you out here?” she called.

There was no place for him to hide if this was some sort of joke. Katy reached in, shutting off the lights, not wanting the battery to die. She noticed the keys weren’t in the ignition. 

 It was easier to see without the headlights on, though she had to wait, getting used to the dark and starlight again. She noticed another light in the distance. A faint, shimmering glow hovering low over the ground further around and up the hill from her. 

The glowing object never held still, diving and ducking around the boulders and gullies on the rockier side of the slope. For a moment she thought it might be a drone, ‘but who’d be dumb enough to fly one of those in the dark so close to the ground.’ The light didn’t travel far, but it was intense, a small point like the afterglow of a torch, like a fading spark in her eye. 

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Mesmerized by the way it seemed to dance over the sandy soil, she watched it for a moment, then she noticed someone going towards it. ‘Could that be Troy?’ She wondered. He struggled up the hill, tripping and falling on the rougher terrain. 

She called again, more forcefully this time, “Troy!”

He didn’t turn his head, didn’t make any motion to show that he’d heard her. He kept moving towards the light as it traveled up the slope, back toward the facility. 

 Katy was going to yell again, even louder but something told her not to. She wasn’t sure why she didn’t want her voice to carry. Maybe it was the glowing object that was so beautiful, bizarre and strange. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up as she felt watched.  

Katy thought of her father and of the observatory dome, the way it hummed, the way it never opened. The way he didn’t talk about his work and how he’d made excuses the night of the explosion.

After a deep breath, she started back up the hill, bending over and using her hands to guide her over the steep spots. Taking her time, she climbed across the slope, carefully crossing into the rockier area, moving faster than Troy. He didn’t seem to be paying any attention to his footing, lumbering ahead, stumbling and getting up again. 

Before long, Katy was close behind him. She noticed he was wearing his hoodie from their high school track team, but he wasn’t moving like any sort of athlete. His steps were slow and deliberate, as if he were walking for the first time. 

Up ahead, the ground glowed with shades of pink, blue and green, sometimes turning bright white. There was a sound too, a low fluttering as the glowing thing darted about quickly, staying too low to the ground for her to see what it was. 

“Troy,” she called almost in a whisper, coming up behind him.

There was still no reaction, so she tried again,

“Troy. Troy, I’m right here.” 

Katy put her hand on his shoulder as he kept walking, grabbing his sweatshirt. He jerked his arm forward, pulling it away. 

“Hey,” she said, grabbing again, this time pulling, trying to twist him towards her. He finally looked back and Katy gasped. There was something wrong with him. Something so incredibly strange. Frozen with shock, unable to understand what she was seeing, she stared at her friend. 

Where she expected to see his deep brown eyes, there was a faint glow, a white light seeping out from under half-closed eyelids. His face was slack. It showed no emotion. Those glowing eyes opened wider and looked at her hand still on his shoulder. He took it harshly and flung it away, then shoved her. 

Katy fell back, grabbing a handful of thorny weeds to keep from sliding down the hill. She was stunned by what she’d seen, but the rough landing and the stabbing thorns helped clear her thoughts. 

She looked up at Troy and saw him start to climb again, moving a little quicker, as if trying to make up for lost time. He stumbled and floundered as he reached a steeper part of the slope. Staying on his hands and knees he climbed on. 

The glow was just over the rise, coming close to the facilities security fence. Katy watched Troy get further away, not sure what to do, certain that she was in some sort of dream. The buzzing faded into the distance. All she could hear was the sound of Troy’s struggling steps.

 There was another noise. A thump followed by footsteps moving quickly, crunching in the soil. Something else was hurrying through the dark, something large and frightening. Katy’s eyes searched, trying to find it. Then her attention fell on a dark spot, blacker than the night, on the rise just before the fence, moving quickly towards Troy. It was like a shadow come to life. She felt trapped watching it, hearing its feet sweeping through the sand. 

The dark thing stalked her friend. It took the last few yards with a speed that seemed impossible for its size, then it sprang off the ledge, and fell on him. 

Katy held her breath watching him go down. ‘I should do something,’ she thought. She started to her feet, trying to control her panic, still not understanding what was happening. As she took a single step forward, the shadow raised a long appendage, a curved claw at the end of a sinuous arm. It was a dark silhouette against the stars. The attacker brought the arm down on Troy, pinning him to the ground. 

The young man struggled, kicking his legs and fighting helplessly. Katy saw the creature’s head rear up. It was wide and as black as the rest of the thing. Like the arm, she could only see its edges against the stars. The head came down again and something shot from its mouth. Troy's scream was brief, filled with terror then the night went silent again. 

 Katy started backing away. The hill was a terrible place to run, but she tried. Falling, rolling and crawling down the hill, she managed to stop herself just before Troy’s truck. 

 Getting to her feet, she looked back, trying to find the shadow thing, hoping it wasn’t following her. Her eyes found the glowing object, up in the sky, flying away, dancing in front of the stars. There was a black spot below it, moving along the ground, that kept pace with the thing in sky, leaving Troy’s body behind. 

Katy took a deep breath, attempting to control her shaking. She wanted to call for help but she was still worried about raising her voice, wondering what could be out here listening. It took every bit of nerve she had to start back up the slope towards Troy. ‘Please don’t let those things come back,’ she thought.

When she found him, he was face down. Katy couldn’t tell if he was breathing. His skin was icy cold.