black faded away with not nearly enough noise to accommodate such mass.
When he finally drew breath again, fear grabbed him by the spine and sent a violent shake from the top of his head to the toes of his feet. Air gasped from his lungs as he vomited oxygen. His legs wobbled.
Richard stumbled backward, unable to pull his eyes from the forest. His feet struck the bottom steps and found footing. Up…up then across the landing. He fumbled the door open and staggered in, still walking backwards; still with his eyes locked on the spot where a living wall of black had touched his reality.
He closed the door, locked it tight, and turned.
Two low, bushy shadows raced into the living room.
Dick gasped in fright…then lowered his head in embarrassment.
The black and gray Norwegian Elkhounds hurried past their best friend and hopped onto the sofa under the bay windows. 'Tyr' and 'Odin' focused their attention on the same stretch of woodland that had served a sight of horrors to Richard.
Nothing outside moved.
After a few moments, Tyr fixed his eyes on his Master. The question in the dog’s expression came across so clear that Rich could have sworn the animal spoke.
What was it?
'I don’t know what it was,' Richard replied then grinned to himself for answering an unvoiced question. 'But tomorrow morning I’m going to tell myself it was the wind or it was a bear or my over active imagination. But it wasn’t any of those, was it? Because you two heard it and smelled it, didn’t you?'
A clear answer formed in the dog’s expression.
Yes.
– Rich woke early even though he did not need to be at work again until Saturday. Mr. Munroe would have to manage for a day by himself.
He swung his naked legs out from under the cozy comforter, covered his briefs with sweat pants and found a loose-fitting navy-blue T-shirt. He left his small room for the second floor hall then descended the rear stairs to the eat-in kitchen. There he found his father and mother acting out their morning routines.
'What are you doing up?'
The question came from his mother. She wore a big, comfy white robe that dragged across the linoleum floor as she ferried a coffeepot between the counter top and mugs on the table. The fragrance of that fresh- brewed java mixed with the lingering aroma of a toasted bagel to fill the room with a rich, welcoming scent.
His dad asked without pulling his attention from the newspaper, 'Not workin' today?'
'No, no.'
A yawn distorted Rich’s answer as he shuffled across the kitchen.
'Bagel?' Mom, who prepped her own with cream cheese, offered.
After politely waving her off, he sat across from his father and spied the headline on the newspaper in his dad’s hands: CLOSE TO HOME.
'Strange stuff, huh?'
'Uh-huh,' dad mumbled.
'George, your son is trying to talk to you,' mom said as she placed her bagel on the table.
'Oh, yes, sorry.'
Dad closed the newspaper, scratched his curly brown hair-something he did when perplexed-and clasped his hands atop the table.
'So, how’s the planning coming? Is Miss Ashley’s perfect day coming along as perfectly as could possibly be planned?'
The smile he flashed assured the sarcasm was not mean spirited. Nonetheless, George earned a light slap on his shoulder from the misses.
'That’s not nice,' Kelly Stone said. 'It’s a big day.'
'Oh yes, I know,' George reached over, grabbed his wife’s arm, and playfully spun the slender women onto his lap with a laugh. 'You were the biggest little princess of them all. The dresses, the centerpieces, even the way you wanted your bridesmaids to carry their flowers. You were absolutely obsessive.'
'Well, I,' George cut her off by kissing her cheek. Mom blushed and scurried to her chair.
'Actually, this isn’t about the wedding.'
No more smiles.
'Last night, when I came home…I don’t know…maybe I’ve got an imagination…'
'What is it, dear?'
'So what was it you imagined?'
'Look, no laughing, okay? When I got home last night, I saw something moving out in the woods across from the front porch. I don’t know what it was, but it was huge. I mean, really friggin’ big.'
'So how ‘friggin’ big’ was it?' George took the obvious line but failed to lighten his son’s mood.
'Dad, I mean, you know I’ve been out there and seen bear and deer and everything else, right?'
'Richard Stone,' his dad forced the issue. 'Tell me what you saw.'
The young man swallowed hard.
'I don’t know what it was. I didn’t see all of it. But it was gigantic, like bigger than an elephant or something. Bigger than the house. But I could only see its side-it was like a big black wall of something moving.'
They did not respond.
Richard conceded, 'Maybe it was a bear.'
His father tapped the newspaper. 'There’s a lot of strange things going on right now, and some of it is getting close to home.'
'The dogs,' Kelly Stone stared at her cream cheese-covered bagel as if hesitant to confess a sin. 'I let them out the back door this morning but as soon as they were outside they ran around the front. So I walked to the living room to see. I figured maybe someone was out there. They ran straight across the lot and over to the woods. Right where you would’ve been looking, I’ll bet.'
George Stone leaned in his chair and twisted his facial expressions back and forth as if in deep thought.
Rich begged for information, 'So? So what the hell is going on?' They were, of course, his parents and no matter how old he would ever get they would know the answers to these types of questions… right?
Mom silently bit into her cream cheese bagel. Dad scratched his curly brown hair.
– Dante Jones drank the last gulp of beer from a frosted mug.
'Are you going to have another?' Rich, who had emptied his own mug a minute before, asked.
Dante did not answer immediately. His attention lay with the big screen TV behind the horseshoe shaped bar. Geraldo Rivera reported from somewhere in the Middle East, but that is not what held Dante’s eyes. He followed the constant crawl of headlines as they rolled endlessly along the bottom of the screen.
…PRESIDENT TO ADDRESS NATION AT 4 PM EST…MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL SUSPENDS ALL GAMES UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE…FAMILY MEMBERS OF CUBS FANS SWARM WRIGLEY FIELD…
'Yeah,' Dante finally answered, embracing the idea of another beer. 'Damn straight, man.'
'What is this? Is this the end of the world?'
Dante said, 'No. Might be the beginning of the end.'
'Whaddya mean?'
Rich knew Dante had a flare for the dramatic. Just as important, when it came to their relationship Dante was the one in charge, the one with the answers. Good friends, sure, but Dante played the lead role of Starsky, or Crockett, or Ponch. Rich had to be content as Hutch, Tubbs, or John.
'If this was the end, it’d be over by now. This might be the start, though, you know? Like, before long, we’ll see where this is going.'
…WITNESSES AT DISNEY WORLD CLAIM PARK ATTENDANT WAS ATTACKED BY A TEN-FOOT TALL 'DINOSAUR CREATURE'…ORLANDO AUTHORITIES DISMISS EYE WITNESS ACCOUNTS AS HYSTERIA AND SUGGEST AN ALLIGATOR WAS RESPONSIBLE…
Dante waved to the bar waitress who approached the table with her head slung low and hints of water in her eyes. Everyone in the restaurant and on the streets shared her solemn disposition, a disposition deepening with each new story of a mass disappearance or strange sighting. Twenty-four hours prior, those stories were
