Hari pressed herself back as far as the seat cushion would allow. For a rapid heartbeat or two she thought she might have confused the thing, but then, after freezing for an instant, it darted toward her face.

That was when she screamed. She raised her hands in defense and the tendril tip fastened onto her forearm like cold dry lips in an obscene kiss.

“Donny!”

But he was tangled with two of them. And then a fourth and a fifth broke through, searching for nourishment or whatever it was they wanted. A second tendril fastened onto her other arm and Hari screamed again in plain, flat-out horror and despair because she saw their doom snaking all around them and no way to fight back and—

What?

The tendrils stopped their writhing and sucking and froze in position. Then they abruptly retracted through the holes in the glass. As they slid off the windshield, the plateau became visible again. The aurora was gone. The sky had lightened while they were under attack, but they hadn’t had a clue. And now the huge red sun was cresting the mountaintops. Despite the alienness of the whole scene, Hari thought she’d never seen anything so beautiful.

“Sunrise…” Donny said, breathless. “You think that’s it? Those things only come out at night?”

Hari was checking her forearms. The sucking tips of the tendrils hadn’t had a chance to break the skin, but…

“I’ve got hickies!”

Donny pointed through the Swiss-cheesed windshield. “Hey, look at the oil slick thingies.”

The black clumps were flattening themselves, then seeping into the ground like liquid, leaving no trace.

“That’s why we had no idea they were here,” Hari said. A glance in the rearview mirror made her jerk upright in her seat. “The passage! It’s opening!”

She started the engine, rammed into drive, and started a tire-screeching 180 turn.

“Easy, easy,” Donny said. “Let’s make sure it’s completely open before we bowl into it.”

Hari could appreciate his concern. The area of the cliff wall that was opening had a misty look that darkened as the red sunlight brightened.

“That’s it!” Donny cried. “The star’s light triggers the passage.”

Hari checked the rearview again. The big red ball was halfway risen. She slowed the Tahoe.

“Let’s hope so. I’ll keep us at a crawl until it fully clears the horizon. If you’re right, we should be good then.”

The opening darkened and deepened as more and more of the sun came into view. When it finally looked again like it had when they’d arrived, Hari eased forward and into the passage. A few minutes later they emerged onto a wooded mountainside with their own sun, smaller and gloriously yellow, sitting above a forested horizon.

Hari paused for a moment to drink in the delicious familiarity, then turned downhill and drove as fast as she dared to get off this mountain before the sheriff and the convoy arrived to drop off another load. She kept a death grip on the steering wheel and didn’t relax until they turned onto Taconic Trail.