Echo St.
Allen—Marcus's assistant—caught the cell phone as it arched toward the asphalt.
They all looked about as the echoing faded, and Tara spoke first, a distinct stutter of fear in her voice.
"I… I… I don't want to hear it." With each word, her voice became stronger, her resolve intense. "We are not going to be scared away from such a lucrative opportunity because of tricks of the wind and the superstitions of others."
"Superstitions! Superstitions!" Tomas yelled, as if he had had enough. He snatched the phone from Allen and went to open the application. His pace slowed as it refused to turn on. He stopped altogether and looked up with blank confusion.
Tara smirked and folded her arms over her chest. "Yes. You and Selene both."
"Selene hasn't said anything, and what about this cap? Marcus already said this Hass boy went missing ten years ago. Did you see how pristine that hat was?"
"Forget the hat, the cell phone looks like it is fresh out of the box."
Tara scoffed. "Dr. Chen, everyone knows you are in love with Selene, and Marcus, I can't believe you are falling…"
"Falling for what, Tara? The given facts?"
"It doesn't matter, we can't go back anyway. That blue fog is only allowing for forward motion."
Everyone looked to Selene, then back down the street toward Willow Shore Blvd. The fog was a swirling, sparkling wall that was just a bit shorter than the wall surrounding the property. Doris jogged up to it.
"Wait, Doris! Let's think…" Tomas' words froze in his throat, his eyes went wide, and his mind buzzed.
Doris had touched the fog and disappeared from before them.
"What? Where did she go?"
"I don't know, Tara, go over and find out!"
"Calm down, Tomas."
Marcus and Dr. Chen sprinted to the spot where Doris had just been. They both looked into the blue and then separated in opposite directions, all the time looking into the dense blue of the fog.
Marcus stood two feet from it and cupped his hands over his mouth. "Doris! Doris! DORIS!!!"
Dr. Chen had gotten a depth tester from the supplies and stuck it into the blue fog. It was pulled from his hand with no warning, and a giggled "It's mine" rang out from the fog.
Both men looked at each other wide-eyed and took several steps back.
Tomas rushed over to Selene. "Why didn't you tell us this thing was creeping in on us?"
Selene looked at him for a long moment. "This is our job. We have worked together often enough. Don't we always pay attention to our surroundings? Haven't you been monitoring the cameras?"
Selene spoke so calmly she sounded half insane. Tomas looked at her for a long moment and turned to get his handheld and see what the monitored screens showed. He looked at the screen and then to Selene. She shrugged.
"So maybe you should have been the one to warn us." She turned and walked back to her SUV. Edith and Dr. Chen looked to the others and went to Selene's SUV.
"What does she mean? What do you see on the cameras?" Tara's voice was small and weak. Tomas looked to her and went toward their SUV.
"It's nothing but a blue fucking wall, Tara."
The SUVs quietly turned onto Echo St. No one got out. Selene stopped her SUV several feet behind the first and sighed.
"What are we going to do?" She looked into the rearview mirror and directly into Edith's eyes.
"We are going to have to hope that we can figure a way out. It has something to do with children; maybe there is something on the property that can help us."
"Just hope?" Edith looked out her window and jumped to the other side of the vehicle when she saw the children standing on the lawn right across from them.
She swallowed hard as the children stared blankly ahead. She calmed when she realized that they were not staring at her. She followed their line of sight to the SUV ahead, and her eyes went wide.
"Don't get out of the SUV." Both Edith and Dr. Chen's hands dropped from their door handles, and the children stepped back into their positions on the lawn.
Tara looked nervously about as soon as Allen stopped the vehicle. "Don't turn off the engine. Marcus…"
Before she could finish, Allen yelled out, and when she looked around, a wall of sparkling blue was rushing toward the vehicle. It slammed into it so hard that it rocked the SUV onto two wheels. Two heartbeats later, it dropped back to all four wheels.
Tara screamed, her nails digging into the soft leather of her seat. Her head snapped back and hit the window hard.
Tomas had not been belted in and flew into Marcus, and the two assistants in the third seat were silent as the vehicle lurched again. The blue fog swirled around the SUV, and there were knocks on the windows and body of it, like hands were knocking to get their attention.
"We just want to play." It was a chorus of little, ethereal voices, of different pitches and volumes.
The fog pulled back and rushed toward them again. Tara's scream was ringing in their ears as they looked out to see the quiet, pristine Echo Street with its neat houses and even neater yards.
The inside of the SUV was hot with fear and spent energy. All six of them suddenly screamed as one, doors opened, and they began falling out. The words from the backseat seared into their minds.
"Do you want to play with us?"
All their eyes were glued to the back windows of the SUV.
Tara screamed as Dr. Chen touched her shoulder, wanting to help her up.
Her courage sprang up from some distant basement as she yelled, "And where were you!?" She fumbled for his hand, her eyes wide with panic.
And slowly, softly, the voices began, all eerie, all unsettlingly calm.
"Welcome to Willow Shore."