NIGHT WATCHERS (An original story by Lawrence LeBlond)

-Chapter 5-

Things were getting very weird in Wayport. Zane, against his will, remained in the cop car while Doug approached the front door. No house lights were on, and there seemed to be a peculiar mist lying over the top of the roof.

Zane listened to Doug’s knock on the door. It was too much for Zane to just sit and wait. He had a bad feeling about this and needed to know firsthand. He climbed from the cruiser, leaving the door wide open. He walked toward the house. Doug stepped down off the porch and stopped Zane.

“I thought I told you to wait in the car?”

“I have to go in. This is my family.” Zane pushed Doug’s hand away from him and walked toward the house with Doug following closely.

Zane reached and turned the doorknob, slowly pushing the door open. A fine mist blew out from within, chilling Zane and the cop as it rushed out.

“What the hell?” Doug pushed Zane aside and shone his flashlight into the home’s front hall. “Is anybody here?”

There was a dead silence. Zane hoped they were asleep and this was some kind of bad dream. He pinched himself, realizing it was no dream. He pushed back against Doug and stepped into the house, disturbing the fine layer of cool mist. He reached for the light switch on the wall and found that it was already in the ‘on’ position.

“It looks like we have no power,” Zane alerted Doug. “You better lead.”

Doug again pushed ahead of Zane, shining his flashlight into the living room. Zane knew this was somehow connected to the previous evening, but could not connect the dots. What the hell is going on here-he thought to himself?

A search of the bottom floor revealed no signs of Zane’s parents, as well as no struggles. Everything was in place and accounted for, except for the Staples’. Doug reached the bottom step of the upstairs, shining his light upward. The fine mist had subsided and warmth started to filter back in. Zane followed Doug up the steps quietly, acting like there was still someone, or something, in the house that should not be abruptly disturbed.

As the two investigators landed on the top step and moved into the upstairs hall, it became clear that nobody was there. All three bedroom doors were open and empty. Zane scratched his head. Where could they be-he perused?

“Okay, I need to go speak to the neighbors,” Doug blurted out.

Zane doubted the neighbors could shed any light on what happened here, other than what they already shared. He did not know if what had transpired directly caused his parents’ disappearance or if they simply fled in fear. It was still possible that they were hiding out in the garage, or perhaps even the woods. Either of those ideas seemed unlikely to Zane, but he had to at least hope that was the case.

Zane checked the garage while Doug talked with the neighbors. Everything was in place, including the family car. If they fled, it was on foot-Zane again perused in his mind. He stepped back out into the dooryard, shining a flashlight he pulled from a shelf in the garage out toward the backyard. He walked slowly between the house and garage, pointing the light toward a veil of mist that was still lingering on the back lawn.

As he cornered the house and was within full shot of the mist, he could tell that there was something within the mist. His heart raced.

“What do you want?” Zane shouted out.

The mist formed into a ball and slowly rose up into the air.

“Where are my parents? Where are they?” He knew whatever this was, it was intelligent.

The mist dispersed from above and everything was gone. Zane lowered himself to his knees and dropped the flashlight on the ground, with the beam of light pointing into the trees at the edge of the lawn. Zane deeply sighed as his head hung low. “What is going on?”

He followed the beam of light until his head was upright and he could see into the woods. There he saw it, a leg stretched along the grass, poking out from the edge of the woods. Zane began to tremble. He tried to get to his feet, but his legs wobbled beneath him and he collapsed back to the ground.

As he tried to pick himself up again he heard Doug screaming from behind, “ZANE!”

Chapter 6 to be posted on Thursday October 1, 2015