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looked and looked, but he was just gone. In my head, I kept hearing his voice: I heard them screaming and when I got outside they were all gone! You hear me? They were all gone, dude! It was enough. I was getting the hell out of there. Whatever was out there, whatever was snatching people off into the night, I knew damn well that I was hardly equipped to handle it.
    I went back to the truck.
    Then, hand on the door, I paused.
    In the distance, I saw what looked like a giant eye.
    It wasn’t an eye, of course. At least, I hoped it wasn’t an eye. It was a large, perfectly round orb of pale blue light that was hovering over rooftops not a city block from where I was. It was like the searchlight of a helicopter and for one moment I was sure that’s what it was. The only problem was that helicopters make noise and this thing, whatever it was, was perfectly silent as it drifted over the roofs, moving gradually west.
    I stood there, trembling.
    Something about it—many things, in fact—scared the hell out of me. It wasn’t right and I knew it. It was part of what was going on and I could not convince myself otherwise. I climbed back into the truck and threw it in reverse, backing well down the street before turning around. I was sweating. I was shaking. That eerie orb had filled me with dread and my survival instinct was amped up. I peeled out of there, heading back towards Piccamore Way as fast as I could safely go. I kept checking the rearview, but the orb was not following me as I feared. I saw it still moving west like a very large and very slow shooting star.
    I breathed a sigh of relief.
    I pulled over and tried to calm myself. What I needed was a cigarette, but I didn’t have any. That was a good thing because I would have started puffing away right then and there. It was coming and I knew it, the stress of the situation demanded it. In fact, I was half-tempted to break into a store and grab a carton. I got my nerves under control and threw the pickup in drive.
    As I did so, I saw a sweeping bluish light coming up the avenue just ahead. I threw the truck in park and killed the engine and lights. The blackness rushed in and I was almost grateful for it the way a mouse is grateful when an owl cannot see him. And owl is applicable because the orb came over the rooftops and it looked very much like the eye of an owl.
    As it came moving up the street, I crouched down on the seat.
    The night was so black that I couldn’t really see what it was and I had a pretty good feeling I didn’t want to. All I knew is that behind the orb was a dark shape that looked very large. The orb moved closer and closer. Unlike a searchlight, it cast very little illumination. It was like one of those tactical lights special operations forces use. As it passed over the truck, I thought I was going to have a coronary my heart was palpitating so badly. The orb was immense and metallic-looking, very shiny, and had to be about the size of a tractor tire. It filled the cab with a deadly pale phosphorescence.
    If it was aware of me, it gave no sign.
    It drifted overhead, maybe twenty feet up, and something—actually, many things—scraped over the roof of the cab like fingernails. And then it was gone. I waited there another five minutes until I was sure it wasn’t coming back, then started up the truck and drove back to Piccamore.

7

    My mission, as it was, had been a complete failure. My wife was still missing and I hadn’t been able to alert the authorities or get help of any kind. All I brought back with me were new fears.
    It calmed me to see Piccamore.
    It was alive with flashlight beams and battery-powered lanterns. Candles were burning inside houses. There was activity and I knew Al had really lit a fire under a lot of asses to get people motivated like that, especially in the middle of the night. The best thing was that there was a patrol car parked in front of my house. I felt instantly relieved. I sighed as I pulled to a stop.
    Al was