Andrew's Library

 Chapter 1

It Begins

 

 

 

Rain poured down from the night sky one August afternoon. The dark clouds had been hovering above the town of Berlin Heights since early morning, but didn't show any sign of rain until around six o'clock. The rain began to fall more fiercely as time ticked past and soon had people running home for shelter against the wind and bombardment of cold water pellets. The sky continued to grow darker, sending Berlin Heights almost into an early night. A roar of thunder shook the windshield of a black Mercedes Benz S550 as it sped down an empty street, sending rooster tails up behind it as it cut through the downpour. The windshield wipers were going at full speed to allow Shay Lynn's view on the road ahead of her unaltered. She had light blonde hair that ended just at her shoulders and partially covered her left eye. Her light blue eyes were focused on the road ahead of her, observing everything that stood outside, beyond the windshield. She was thin, but not anorexic, she was the perfect size, or at least she believed she was, and thats all that mattered to her. She was wearing a black and white stripped T-Shirt and black skinny jeans. Her left hand gripped the black leather steering wheel, keeping the car heading straight down the street she was on, her right hand rested on the gear shift that sat between her seat and the passenger seat next to her. Sitting in the back seat was a young girl that looked about 8 or 9 years old, Kristi Lynn. She had dark brown hair that reached just below her shoulders, slightly longer than that of Shays. Kristi was wearing a dark purple dress that ended just below her knees and a pair of white socks and black shoes on her feet.

The only sound that filled the car, aside from the sounds the car was making, was the radio playing through the ten different speakers laid throughout the interior of the vehicle. Shay had been listening to the weather station as they talked about the storm that had now encased Berlin Heights. "It seems that this sudden change in weather has surprised even our experts here at the studio" announced the radio host, breaking right into the latest news following a commercial. As the man began to talk, Shay turned the volume up, interested in what was going on above her, in the sky, in the clouds. "All we know, at this time, is that it looks like the worst it about to come. We strongly suggest everyone, and I mean everyone, get indoors somehow and just wait patiently for it to ride out" continued the radio host.

Sounds like its pretty bad Shay thought to herself as she came to a stop at a red light. The radio host continued to ramble on about how to make sure you stayed safe if it turned into a tornado or anything severe. Turning the steering wheel to the left, she pressed her foot down on the gas pedal as the light changed from red to green, and made a left turn onto the next street.

"Though our experts say there is a very, very small chance that we will see a tornado, but its better to be safe than sorry" he added before the signal began to disappear, static replacing the mans voice. Shay looked to the radio on the dashboard in front of her as the static began to get worse, making it almost impossible to understand a word the man was saying. She fiddled with the tuner, trying to find another station that could give her any more information about the storm, but all she could find was a music station playing River Below by Billy Talent. Turning down the volume again, so she didn't wake Kristi, she continued to drive toward her home, listening to the other songs the station played afterwards.

~

 

At the other end of town at the White Eagle, Berlin Height citizens sat quietly watching the BH News Channel on a large T.V that hung on the wall behind the bar counter. "As you can see here, a large cold front just came out of nowhere and clashed with our warm front that we had earlier this morning" said Anchorman Buck Melendez as he pointed at a green screen satellite image of the storm above Berlin Heights.

"That thing couldn't have just come out of nowhere" started one of the citizens as he stared at the T.V. The man had dark blonde hair and was smoking a cigar. He took a long drawn out puff and blew the smoke at the T.V, clearly annoyed that no one knew the answer to what was going on. "I bet you they're hiding something from us, they know whats really going on. They just want us to believe its just a storm"continued to man. He was talking out loud, but no one was really listening to what he was saying. "They cant hide it from us forever"he added as he stood up and put a red baseball cap on his head and then placed a five dollar bill on the counter in front of him before leaving.

Behind the counter stood a tall man, with dark brown hair that reached just above his shoulders. His ocean blue eyes were fixed on the T.V, just as interested in what was going on as everyone else in the diner was. Hearing the one man getting up and leaving, he turned and took the five dollar bill and slipped it into the cash register. "Andrew" called one of the cooks from the kitchen. Andrew turned from the T.V to look at the man calling his name. "Table four"said the man as he placed a plate on the small window that looked into the kitchen. Andrew nodded his head and took the plate to table four.

"So who ordered the club sandwich?" he asked as he reached the table. A young man that looked to be in his late thirties spoke up.

"No tomatoes?" asked the man. Andrew nodded his head. "Then thats me"answered the man as he took the plate from Andrew. "My daughter ordered the soup" added the man as he quickly began to eat his food. Andrew nodded and placed the bowl in front of the young women sitting across from the man. She looked like she was in her mid-teens, around 15 or 16 years old.

"Thank you" she said shyly.

Andrew smiled, "If you need anything else, let me know" he said as he turned around and headed back to the counter. As he walked toward the counter, he noticed the T.V picture was beginning to go blurry. "Did someone touch the T.V?" he asked as he placed the empty plate on the counter and began to play around with the menu on the T.V.

"No, it just started to get all fuzzy" answered one of the customers sitting at the bar. He was holding a mug of beer that looked like it hadn't been touched since he ordered it. Andrew frowned.

Is this storm really interfering with the radio and the T.V signals? He asked himself as he closed the menu and looked at the T.V now. The picture was almost completely replaced by black and white static. Weird he added as he leaned against the counter. A few minutes later the bells above the front doors chimed and a young women walked in. She looked about the same age as Andrew was. Early thirties and had short black hair that reached to about her ears. She had a series of piercings in each of her ears and one in her nose. Her name tag told you her name was Cheri Shaw. "Hey Cheri, youre finally here" Andrew called over to her. They were both wearing white uniforms, indicating they both waited here at the White Eagle. She walked behind the counter and placed her umbrella under it where it wouldn't get in the way.

"Have you seen it out there?"she asked as she took off her black jacket she was wearing over top of her uniform. "I couldn't see a foot out of the windshield" she said as she let the cooks in the kitchen know she had arrived. Andrew laughed slightly.

"Well Im glad you got here safely"he said with a smile as he walked around the counter and towards the doors. "Wish me luck" he said as he left the building and stood under the canopy, staring across the parking lot at his vehicle: A bright red Hummer 3. He was going to get completely drenched trying to cross the parking lot. Taking out his keychain and singled out the key to his vehicle and then ran across the parking lot and quickly climbed into the car. He had gotten completely drenched trying to cross the parking lot. His brown hair streamed down his face and his white waiter uniform was almost transparent. Unbuttoning his shirt he tossed it onto the passenger seat next to him and then put the keys into the ignition. Andrew had spent a lot of his high school career lifting weights in the Gym, believing that he would get a lot of girls interested in him if he was muscular, however, he didn't get any attention from any girls, just the ones he was already friends with.

The clouds hanging in the sky had blotted out the sun, making it almost impossible to tell where the sun was. Only way anyone would have been able to tell what time it was, was by looking at a clock. The clock on the radio in front of Andrew indicated that it was five minutes to nine, but you wouldn't be able to tell it by looking at the sky. Flicking the radio tuner, Andrew searched for a radio station that hadn't been cut out by static, but failed to find one. The only station that didn't seem knocked out by the storm was Z-145 FM, an all music station. He wasn't in the mood to really listen to music, so turned the radio off again. Andrew lived in an apartment complex at the other end of town, but he didn't seem to be having any trouble at all getting across town, seeing as there was no one on any street anywhere.

 

~

 

At the far end of Chapel Avenue, at the east end of Berlin Heights, was a large apartment complex that stood six stories tall. Underneath the apartment was a parking lot that was built for the residents of the apartments. Descending an extra two stories into the ground, the apartment complex stood at eight stories from the very bottom to the very top. The building itself was layered with dark red bricks and glass windows. One the third floor an Air Conditioner hung out of one of the windows, keeping that particular apartment room cooler than the rest of the building. On the roof of the building stood a large satellite, that on a regular occasion, gave the residence of the apartment access to satellite television, but it became increasingly useless on this particular evening. Standing next to it were antennas that were used to pick up any and all surrounding radio signals, but that too had become useless, save for Z-145 FM All Music Radio, the only station that didn't seem to be knocked out by the storm and replaced with static.

Below the earth, in the two story descending parking garage that was built under the apartment complex, the air was musty and dirty; small lights hung from the grey stone ceiling, giving the drivers little to no light to see where they were driving, just enough so they wouldn't hit anything, or anyone; yellow arrows were painted on the ground to indicate what direction you should be heading, along with the yellow lines indicating the parking holes. There seemed to be no empty parking holes, anywhere. Shay didn't even know this many people lives in these apartments. Turning around a cement cylinder that acted as a support to hold the building above it, she continued deeper into the garage, looking for a parking hole on the second floor. The cars seemed to descend in quantity as she descended lower, and the number of parking holes increased. Pulling her black Mercedes into an empty hole, Shay pulled the keys from the ignition and unbuckled her seatbelt. She looked behind her at Kristi and the elevator that stood at the very far end of the garage. "Sweetie, time to wake up" Shay said quietly to her daughter, but Kristi showed no sign of hearing her mother. Smiling, Shay climbed out of the car, walked around to the back passenger side door, opened it, and carefully lifted Kristi out of the car. Kristi sub-consciously wrapped her arms around Shays neck and held onto her as she was carried. Closing the door, Shay pressed the luck button her key and then walked across the dark garage to the elevator at the other end.

Thunder could be heard roaring through the concrete ceiling above her, and the sound of rain pounding against the apartments could be heard faintly under that. The garage was completely empty except for the vehicles that normally inhabited the darkness, keeping one another company, if cars needed company; but Shay couldn't shake the feeling that she was being watched; she kept turning her head to look behind her, only to prove to herself that she wasnt being watched. Once she reached the closed elevator doors, using the hand she wasn't holding Kristi with, she pressed the up arrow and waited patiently for the doors to open and accept her inside. After a few minutes a light ding sound was heard and the metal doors to the elevator opened and allowed Shay and Kristi to enter. The ding sounded again and the doors closed behind her. The elevator room was lit up by a yellow light bulb hanging above where Shay was standing, it was in a glass case so no would be able to burn themselves by touching it. On the wall to the right of the door was a panel containing a series of buttons with numbers and letters on them: B2, B1, Lob, F2, F3, F4, F5, and F6. Shays apartment was on the fifth floor, so she pressed the F5 button in, which caused it to light up orange. Above the door was a black screen that displayed the floor it was currently at. B2 was showing in red lettering, slowly changing as the elevator ascended to F5 where she would get off.

As the screen displayed F5, the ding sounded once again, and the metal doors slid open, revealing the dark hallway beyond. A single light lit the hallway, positioned halfway down the hallway. Normally the hallway was bright and lively looking, but on this particular night, nothing seemed to want to work properly. She was surprised the elevator had even worked. Stepping out of the elevator room, Shay made her way across the dark hallway to one of the doors at the far end with the number one hundred and thirty on it in silver metal lettering. Using her free hand, Shay singled out the key to the door and unlocked it. Kristi was still asleep, clinging to her mothers neck. Pushing the door open with her foot, Shay walked through the doorway and placed the keys on the nightstand directly to the left of the door, kicked the door closed, and headed directly to Kristis room to lay her down on her bed.

The house was well decorated. The main room, the living room, had a black leather couch situated in the centre of the room, two chairs of the same fabric sat on either side, circling a dark wooden coffee table, and in front of that, a 13" television hung from the dark brown painted living room wall. A few custom paintings hung from the walls. It was simple, but nice. Kristi's room was right off of the living room and was painted a light pink colour, and a single window sat in the far wall, overlooking the roads below. Lying Kristi on her bed, Shay gently took off her shoes and socks before sliding her under the dark purple covers that matched her dress. Leaning down, Shay kissed Kristi on the forehead before heading back out into the living room, leaving the bedroom door open in case she needed anything. The kitchen was just as simply decorated as the living room was. On the right wall was a white counter with two white stools sitting under it. The kitchen was big enough to fit a real table, so Shay and Kristi had to use the counter. On the opposite wall were a white fridge, a stove, a single counter with a drawer containing silverware,  and a dishwasher, all crammed against a single wall. Shelves and cupboards lined the wall opposite of the opening to the kitchen from the living room. Different kinds of spices, salt and pepper sat on the shelves; plates, bowls, cups, boxes of cereal, pots and pans, and Tupperware filled the cupboards. A silver garbage can sat next to the entrance to the kitchen.

Shay walked over to the fridge and opened it and looked inside, she still needed to go shopping to get some snacks for her and Kristi, but she kept forgetting to grab some whenever she was out at the store. Reaching into the fridge with a free hand she pulled out a can of Coca-Cola and then closed the fridge. The instant the fridge door was closed a loud roar of thunder reached down from the dark sky and shook the apartment building. A single window hung next to the counter on the right wall, but Shay couldnt see much out of it, the rain was pouring down so hard that all she could see was the streams of water running down the glass. Just then a fork of lightning stretched itself across the sky, and almost instantly afterwards, the power to the building went out. "Great, just what I needed" she said quietly as she popped open her cola and took a sip of it. She would need to find something else to do to pass the time now.

 

~

 

Making a right at a set of lights, Andrew came up to the apartment complex in which he lived. He lived in the same building as Shay and Kristi did. He looked up through the sun roof above his head as a fork of lightning stretched across the sky and collided with a transformer standing on the other side of the street. Sparks ignited into the air and then fell to the rain soaked road below. He then noticed all the street lights and lights in the surrounding buildings flickered out and stayed out. Guess it knocked out the power he thought to himself as he pulled up to the ramp leading into the underground garage. The thought that the garage would be almost pitch black hadn't crossed his mind yet, let alone that the machine that accepted your residential pass ran on electricity and was dead because of the power outage he had just witnessed. Letting a sigh escape his lips, he pulled into the above ground parking lot and made sure the drivers side was facing the doors so he didn't have to run a whole lot further to get inside. Another fork of lightning stretched across the sky and collided with the same transformer again. I thought lightning didn't strike the same place twice? He thought as he quickly made a run across the parking lot and into the apartment building.

"Welcome back Mr. Walker" said the female attendant behind the counter just inside the front doors. Andrew shook his head, sending what water had accumulated in his hair to the ground before looking up to her. She was a young girl, younger than he was, around 18 or 19 years old, he had never bothered to ask her age. She had her black hair done up in a pony tail, revealing her neck and face. Her skin was light, like she hadnt spent any time in the sun and sat behind the counter all day.

"Thank you" he responded with a slight smile. He acted polite to her because her father owned the complex in which he lived. He knew if he acted like a jack ass toward her, shed complain to her father, and then he might be forced out onto the street. He hated her father, but didn't mind her. She smiled back before returning to her radio that was running on batteries.

"Storms knocked out every single radio channel, television channel, and even the power" she said as she fiddled with the tuner. "Only radio station that seems to work is Z-145 FM" she added as she turned to that station. When the Sun Sleeps by Underoath was playing now. Andrew nodded his head.

"Yeah, as if people weren't annoyed already at the sudden appearance of this storm, now its knocked out every source of electronic entertainment" he added as he walked toward the stairs, obviously aware that the elevator ran on electricity, and wouldn't get him very far if he tried it. "Have a nice night Hillary" he said as he gripped the hand railing and began to climb the stairs up to the fifth floor.

"You too" Hillary called back to him. The staircases were almost as dark as the rest of the building save for the small amount of light coming through the windows at the top of each set of stairs. Stopping to look out one of the windows, Andrew spotted a man walking down the sidewalk with an umbrella over his head. The rain and the wind were wailing uncontrollably against the umbrella, wiping it in all directions. The wind would have tore the umbrella into the air had the man not had a good grip on it.

Idiot Andrew thought as he glanced to the sky as a fork of lightning flickered through the clouds. Looking back to where the man with the umbrella had been standing, Andrews eyes widened as the man was now gone. What the hell? He asked as he leaned up against the window to see if the man was off to the side of the building now. He wasn't. He was gone. Maybe I was just imagining him there he added as he turned to climb the rest of the stairs to the fifth floor. His apartment was room number one hundred twenty-nine, the room across the hall from Shays room. Neither of them knew one another though, they had never met each other before and probably never expected to.

Now that the storm had taken over Berlin Heights, the worst was about to begin, all they could do was wait patiently for it to run its course and pass over them.

Andrews apartment was just as simply decorated as Shays across the halls was.  His living room contained a red cloth couch, a chair that matched it, and a glass coffee table in front of them. A black television remote sat on the coffee table along with a magazine that was opened to a picture of a female modelling a pair of black and red lingerie. Hanging on the wall in front of that, was a television, about the same size as Shays: 13".Behind the couch was a small glass table with two white chairs tucked neatly under it. Unlike Shays apartment though, Andrews only had one bedroom, one bathroom, a living room, and a kitchen that was a tad bit smaller. Entering his bedroom he quickly began to undress his drenched clothes and put on warm clean clothes. He replaced the black dress pants with a pair of cotton dark blue sleeping pants and a plain black T-Shirt. He tossed the wet clothing into a black hamper on the floor that was already filled with dirty clothing. Tomorrow would be laundry day. Jumping onto his couch, he picked up the magazine and flipped through a few of the pages, looking at some more models modeling lingerie and read some of the articles that follow the pictures.

Chapter 2

Unexpected Circumstances

 

An hour and a half later, at ten thirty, the storm still showed no signs of settling down or clearing up. The wind continued to throw the heavy pellets of water against buildings, cars, and anything else that got in its way. The apartment complex on Chapel Avenue was still without power, and as time passed, the remainder of Berlin Heights lost power due to the storm. Lightning stretched across the sky again and again, followed by a loud rolling wave of thunder that washed over the town, shaking everything in its path. The only sound that filled Andrew's apartment room was the sound of the rain pounding heavily against the widow in the kitchen and in his bedroom; nothing else seemed to dare to make a sound against the storm. Andrew was now sitting at the table located behind his couch, eating a sandwich. Ever since he was a little kid, he had gotten his mother to make him a sandwich before bed; he couldn't sleep without having eaten something before bed. His sandwich was made of whole wheat white bread and contained a few slices of ham, some tomatoes, lettuce, mustard, mayo, and onions. He would have added bacon to the mixture, but he had an electric stove, which wouldn't turn on due to the power still being out. A few minutes later Andrew finished his sandwich and had placed the plate in the sink before he entered his room again. His bedroom was a lot darker than the rest of his house, the rest of his house was lit up lightly by the light that was coming through the window, and his bedroom didn't have a window.

 

~

 

Shay was jerked from her sleep by the sound of thunder roaring over the apartment. She looked at her watch and pressed a small button on it, causing it to light up revealing that it was ten thirty. She let a soft sigh escape her lips as she climbed off of the couch and over to the window in the kitchen. It was even darker outside now than it had been before, now that it was actually night. A fork of lightning stretched down from the clouds and collided with a top of a building in the distance and was followed shortly after by a roar that shook the glass in the windowpane. She continued to stare out into the dark sky and watched the lightning as it arched and stretched through the clouds until the sky lit up magnificently and a scream echoed through the stillness of her apartment. It was Kristi. Shay's face jumped almost instantly between amazement from the lightning to terror as the shriek echoed through the apartment again.

"Mommy" Kristi screamed as her room flickered with bright lights. Across from her bed was her window, which was wide opened. Sitting just outside the window was a large metallic face staring back at her. She tried to scream for her mother again, but it was cut short by a roar of thunder that followed another flash of lightning. The metallic looking being moved across the room, a bright yellow glow emitting from it, making it impossible to see any real features on its body, all that was visible was the body outline and the metallic looking skin that covered it. It now stood at the foot of Kristi's bed, large glowing eyes staring down at her as she stared in fear back up at whatever it was. It reached a long arm down to her and just before coming into full contact with Kristi, Shay exploded into the room and stopped dead at the doorway as the metallic looking figure turned to face her.

"Get away from my daughter!" Shay yelled at the glowing figure, but it didn't seem to understand what she was saying and looked back to Kristi before continuing to reach down to the girl. Shay grumbled and ran towards her daughter. "You can't have her!" she yelled as she attempted to jump in front of the figure and her daughter, but was too late. The instant the figure's hand came into contact with Kristi, they both disappeared in a flash of light that was followed by an explosion of thunder. The window at the end of the room cracked and slammed shut, shattering it. Pieces of glass bounced off the floor and scattered themselves across the carpeted floor. Shay lay on Kristi's bed, tears filling her eyes. What the hell just happened? She continued to run through her head, she swore to herself it was just a dream induced by the storm, but when she pinched herself in an attempt to wake up, only thing she felt the slight prick of the pinch. The tears began to trickle down her face and onto the purple sheets on the bed, turning them a slight shade darker than they already were.

Just then a knock came to the front door. "Shay, are you alright?" came a female voice. It was the manager's daughter Hillary. "I heard screams, open up" she added as she continued to pound her fist against the door. By this time half the floor had been awaken by Hillary and had joined her in the hallway to see what had happened, Andrew as among one of them.

 

~

 

"What's going on?" he asked Hillary as he opened the door to his apartment and looked out at the all the people crowded outside his door.

"I don't know yet. I was just going around making sure everyone had supplies to last the night when I heard a loud scream" she answered as she pounded on the door again. "Shay, open up or I'll open it myself" she yelled into the door again before she began to fiddle with a chain of keys hanging from her belt buckle. Just as she had found the key to the door, a soft click came from the door and it opened. Shay stood on the other side. Andrew stared through the doorframe at her, amazed that a girl that attractive had lived across the hall from him all these years. Her light blond hair was in a mess and her skin was pale, she looked like she had just seen a ghost. "What happened?" Hillary asked as she walked into the room.

"They took Kristi" she answered, her voice was all shaky and cracked. The words ranged from pitch to pitch as she spoke. Hillary looked at her, confused.

"Who took Kristi?" she asked. Shay shook her head; confusion filled her eyes, along with terror and shock.

"I, I don't know, but whoever they were, they took her with them" she answered as she slumped against the wall, tears beginning to trickle down her face again. A tall grey haired man stepped into the apartment and knelt beside her. His name was Jean; he lived in the apartment just down the hall from them. He was a therapist at the Berlin Heights Medical Center. He worked with mentally and emotionally unstable people for a living, this probably didn't seem all that strange to him.

"Shay, I need you to calm down and try and remember what these people that took your daughter looked like" said Jean. She had a daughter? That hit Andrew pretty hard. The chance of him getting anywhere now had just came crashing down before it even reached the end of the runway.

~

 

Tears continued to trickle down Shay's face as Jean attempted to talk to her. Her mind wasn't even focused on anything particular, she couldn't seem to find any way to phrase her answer, so just shook her head a bunch of times and then buried her face into her arms. Jean had been working at the Medical Center for years now, and deep down, she knew that he could help her, but she was in so much shock at the turn of events that had just occurred to her, that nothing seemed to be able to process correctly in her head. Hillary had disappeared into Kristi's bedroom and had spotted the glass scattered across the floor. "Did they come in through the window?" she asked. Shay nodded her head in response.

"Shay, I need you to concentrate. We won't be able to save Kristi if you can't tell us who took her" Jean asked again. He had one arm around her shoulders, attempting to comfort her. A few of the people in the hallway returned to their rooms, not wanting to get in the way of what was going on. "Come on, you must have seen them" he added as he attempted to lift her face from her arms so he could look at her, but she refused to move, or talk to him. He sighed. "You won't get her back -" he attempted to say, but was cut off as she lashed at him.

"Shut up!" she screamed as she buried her face into her arms again, crying uncontrollably again. Jean stood up and looked to Hillary and then turned to leave.

"I was just trying to help" he said before he was gone. Hillary stood in the living room looking down at Shay and then looked out into the hallway and spotted Andrew.

"Andrew, would you stay with her for a moment? I need to run downstairs and get my cell phone so I can call the police" she said as she headed into the hallway. Shay then felt another arm around her shoulder and looked up from her tear covered arms at the Andrew.

"Who, who are you?" she asked. Her voice was still shaky and the words were still slightly cracked up, but she was understandable.

"My names Andrew, I live across the hall from you" he answered. His voice had a tone of understanding to it. For some reason, Shay felt as if she could trust him, but she couldn't understand why she felt that. "So, how old is your daughter?" he asked, his ocean blue eyes penetrated her, and she felt like he was reading her thoughts.

"She's nine years old" she answered as she buried her face in her arms again.

"What's her name?"

"Kristi"

"She sounds like a cute little girl"

"She is"

"I would have liked to meet her"

"She doesn't talk much, she's shy"

"So am I"

Shay looked up at him again as he said this and stared into his eyes. "No you're not" she said. He nodded his head. "You wouldn't be talking to me then" she added.

"That's not true. I may be shy, but when someone is upset, I try to help" he answered. His words melted against her, as if she was absorbing them like she would have a use for them at some other time.

"Do you think I'll get to see her again?" she asked as she continued to stare into his eyes. He nodded his head with a smile.

"I'm sure you will. She's only nine years old, she couldn't have gotten very far" he said.

"But she was taken; she didn't just get up and jump out of the fifth story window on her own" she responded as she glanced to the door that led to Kristi's room.

"Well then whoever took her couldnt have gotten very far" he said as he rubbed her back softly. Shay sat next to Andrew for a few minutes until Hillary returned.

"Alright, I called 911, they're on their way right now" Hillary said as she knelt in front of Shay. "We will find your daughter, don't worry" she said with a small smile on her face.

"Wait, how did you call the police station? I thought the whole town was without power" Andrew asked as he looked up at Hillary.

"They have their own back-up generator" she answered as she looked over to him again. Andrew nodded his head, he hadn't thought about that.

 

~

 

Fifteen minutes later the window in the kitchen was illuminated by the lights of police cars. The sirens wailing through the rain could be heard through the broken window in Kristi's bedroom.  Andrew was still sitting next to Shay just inside her apartment; she had stopped crying, but still didn't seem to know what had happened. He wondered if she would be able to talk to the officers when they arrived to talk to her. She was leaning her head against his shoulder and had her arms wrapped around one of his. For some reason he was getting the feeling she liked him, and he hadn't even done anything other than just talk to her. A few seconds later Hillary and two uniformed officers appeared at the doorway. "Shay, the officers are here to talk to you" Hillary said as she led the officers into the apartment. Shay had stopped crying by this point, but looked as if she was sleeping. Her eyes were closed, breathing had slowed down, and she was resting gently against Andrew's shoulder.

The first Officer to enter the room, stood as tall as a Sky Scraper, or at least he looked like a Sky Scraper from Andrew's point of view on the ground. He actually stood about six feet tall, but looked taller from the shape of his body. He was a thin man, on the verge of being too thin. His dark brown hair was buzzed, so that only little needles poked out of his skull. He was wearing the typical black Police Uniform with a golden star on the right of his chest, indicating he was from the Berlin Heights Police Department (BHPD), and a name tag on the left indicating his name was Officer Bill.

The second officer to enter was shorter than Bill and was a female. Her light blonde hair, like Shay's, was up in a pony tail. She too wore the black Police Uniform with the golden star and a nametag, indicating that her name was Officer Tracey. Tracey looked down at Andrew and Shay as they sat just inside the apartment room. "Ms. Shay Lynn?" she asked. Her voice was soft and poetic. She could easily lull babies to sleep. Shay didn't open her eyes to look at the Officer speaker to her or make any sign that she was even aware of Tracey and Bill being in the room with them. Tracey looked to Hillary for a brief moment before speaking to Shay again: "Ms. Shay Lynn?" Still no sign the girl was aware that she was being spoken too.

"I think she passed out" Andrew responded after a long moment of silence. Tracey's green eyes locked onto Andrew's for a brief moment, and in that brief moment of time, she seemed to have learned everything there was to know about him.

"Well then maybe you can tell me something Mr. Lynn"

"It's Walker, Andrew Walker" he corrected.

"My apology Mr. Walker".

"From what I was able to learn from her, someone, or something, broke into her daughter's bedroom and kidnapped her" he answered. Bill, the other Officer, turned to Hillary and whispered something into her ear, then was shown to Kristi's bedroom. Hillary returned to the living room, to Shay and Andrew.

"What's your relationship with Ms. Lynn?" asked Tracey. She had pulled a pad of paper from a pocket on her vest and had begun to jot notes down onto it as she questioned him.

"I live across the hall"

"Did you hear any screams?"

"No, I was asleep. I heard Hillary banging on Shay's door though"

To Hillary, Tracey said: "What did you hear?"

"I heard Shay yelling at someone, I couldn't make out what it was she was saying, but it was loud enough that I could hear it out in the hallway" Hillary responded, her eyes were focused on Shay's body lying against Andrew. Jotting a few things down onto the notepad, Tracey's green eyes fixed onto Andrew's once again.

"Well thank you both for your assistance. We'll need to bring Shay down to the Station so we can get the rest of the info we need once she's come to her senses" Tracey stated as she folded the note pad and slipped it into the pocket just below the golden star on the right of her chest. Just then Bill re-emerged from Kristi's bedroom; he too was holding a notepad. The page he was opened to contain a few lines written down on it, he had written down everything he thought necessary. Bill walked over to Tracey and began to whisper into her ear. Hillary had been standing close enough to hear the whispers, but not close enough to hear what they were saying to one another. Andrew could hear only the hammering of the rain against the kitchen window across the room. "Mr. Walker, would you be able to bring Shay down to our Cruiser for us?" Tracey asked as she shifted her gaze from her partner to Andrew and Shay. Andrew nodded his head. Tracey then turned and disappeared into the hallway, Bill following at her heels.

Andrew lifted Shay into his arms and carried her out into the hallway, down four flights of stairs to the lobby, waited a few seconds for Tracey to pull the black and white cruiser up to the front door, and then climbed into the back of the cruiser and sat Shay next to him. They had decided to let him come along so they wouldn't have to carry her, and do everything else that they would need to do, by themselves.

On the dashboard sat the Police Broadband Radio. It was more or less a large Speaker and a Microphone that connected all of the black and white cruisers back to the Station, allowing them to keep in touch with their boss and other Officers at the Station. Tracey flicked the radio and listened to the static that hummed out for a few moments before a female voice replaced the static. "Squad car G-1, you there?" asked the voice.

Tracey picked up the microphone and flicked the red button on the side before she would speak. "Squad car G-1, reading you loud and clear" She then flicked the red button off and the radio emitted a few split seconds of static before the first voice spoke again.

"Where are you located?" she asked.

"Just picking up another victim to another abduction over at Chapel Avenue" Tracey responded, flicking the red switch off again, listening to the static for a few more moments.

"Alright, we've got a mob forming outside the Station, just thought I'd warn you" she said.

"Roger that. G-1 out" Tracey said as she flicked the red button again before placing the microphone back onto the receiver. The static filled the car for a few more moments before the Radio was turned off.

"There have been more of these abductions?" Andrew asked, having overheard the conversation between Tracey and the female from the Station. Tracey was focused on driving carefully through the downpour; Bill had turned around in his seat and answered the question.

"Yes. A few minutes after the storm hit, people began to call in with missing people reports. And now that the entire town's lost power, everyone's grouping outside of the Station and demanding they get help" Bill answered. His voice was deep and dark, but at the same time had a hint of compassion. Andrew displayed a look of shock on his face as he heard this. He couldn't believe it either, for hours now; people were disappearing left right and center and no one knew what the abductor(s) even looked like, giving the BHPD an even harder time dealing with all the missing reports. Bill turned around in his seat again and focused on the road ahead of them, and the four of them sat quietly for the remainder of the ride.

Chapter 3

The Missing

 

A large group of people stood outside the BHPD Station, screaming, yelling, crying, and banging on the windows of the building, anything they could do to get the police's attention. Tracey pulled the black and white cruiser to a stop at the curb and stared, astonished, at the size of the group now. Luckily the large group hadn't spotted the cruiser parked behind them, leaving them safe for now. A few of the people in the mob were carrying picket signs with pictures of their lost friend or family member. Andrew had been staring out the cruiser window at the group of people in amazement, that this many people had gone missing in the past hour and a half since the storm had hit the town. Tracey flicked a small switch that was next to the steering wheel, which caused the sirens to blare and the flashing red and blue lights to begin. Almost immediately the group of people turned around to face the cruiser that was parked behind them. The closest row of people rushed towards the car and began to slam their fists against the windows; luckily the glass was bullet proof and would take more than pounding against it to cause it to break. Andrew had moved back against the opposite side of the vehicle as the people punched and attacked the cruiser, attempting to get inside.

"Hold on" Tracey warned as she placed her hands on the steering wheel, turned it slightly to the left, and pressed her food gently down onto the gas pedal. The car lurched forward and pushed against the group of people that had been banging on hood of the car; they backed up as the car moved toward them.  They continued to bang against the hood of the car, even as Tracey inched the vehicle toward them, pushing them away at the same time.

"Don't run them over" Andrew said as he wrapped his fingers around the metal fence that filled the gap between the top of the front seats and the roof, keeping prisoners from attacking the Officers. Tracey simply shrugged her shoulders.

"If they don't move out of the way, that's their fault" she said as she revved the engine again and pressed forward, pushing the mob away. The cruiser was slowly making its way toward the parking garage that was located at the side of the Police Station. The mob had completely surrounded the vehicle now, smashing their fists against any part of the vehicle they could reach. After a few minutes, Tracey had managed to move the cruiser through the crowd of people and into the garage. Andrew quickly picked Shay up and carried her across the pavement to the door at the opposite end. The large crowd was moving down the ramp toward them. Bill had pulled his service revolver from its holster at his waist and was aiming it at the crowd of people.

"We're dealing with this the best we can. You'll have to be patient with us" he yelled at them, keeping the gun aimed in their direction. The crowd seemed un-phased by his weapon and continued to charge him. He only had sixteen bullets in the magazine and there was a lot more than sixteen people charging him. Quickly stepping to the side, he ran toward the open door, and barely getting the door closed behind him. The sound of fists banging against the metal echoed through the empty hallway the four of them now stood.

"Follow me Mr. Walker" Tracey beckoned as she turned from the door and headed down to the opposite end of the hallway. A few doors lined the hallway, each of them painted the same colour as the walls, bright beige, hiding it from any intruders, and next to each of the doors were a touch pad, concealed behind a panel coloured the same. The only way to open the doors was to open the panel and input the correct combination of numbers and letters, or at least that's what Andrew had guessed. The rooms on the other side of the doors were probably safety rooms in case they needed to hide from an attacker or something, and being underground, they also worked well for bomb shelters. At the end of the hallway, was another door, this one however, had a doorknob, and the touch pad was in clear sight. Tracey fished a card from a pocket and swiped it across the pad, causing a light click to sound from the door. The door had been unlocked, allowing the four of them to enter the dark room that stood beyond the threshold.

 

~

 

The rain continued to pound against Chapel Avenue Residential Apartments, long after the two uniformed Officers had departed with Andrew and Shay. Hillary was once again sitting in the main lobby of the Apartment building, listening to her portable radio, Z-145 FM All Music Radio. Commercials had replaced the songs that would normally be playing. They played music 23 hours a day, 7 days a week. For a combination of an hour a day, they had commercials; they needed some form of advertisement so they could afford to stay on the air. An advertisement for the new Simple Plan Album from Lava Records was playing, trying to get the listeners to buy the new record for a cheaper price than at most music stores. Following the advertisement, Z-145 played Your Love Is Just a Lie off that album, giving the listeners a taste of what they would find if they purchased the album.

Next to the radio sat a bottle of water with a single package of Crystal Light Pink Lemonade added to it, turning the water to turn pink. The lid sat next to the bottle and the bottle was only half full now, Hillary had been drinking it quite frequently. She was holding a book in her hands; she was reading the novel version of The Day After Tomorrow based off of the blockbuster film from 2004. As Your Love Is Just a Lie began to come to an end, the station began to cut out to static, leaving Berlin Heights without a single radio station or television station. Hillary swatted the radio, hoping it was at her end, but when it didn't fix itself, she turned the radio off. She didn't want to listen to static all night. A few pages into the next chapter of her book, her cell phone began to ring. An upbeat Jamaican beat came through the small speakers. Slipping her book mark onto the page she was on, she placed the book next to the lifeless radio and picked up her cell phone from her purse and flicked it open. "Hello?" she answered. The low hum of static answered her. She held the phone out in front of her and looked at it confused. According to the bars on the display screen, she had full batteries and full service, but why was she getting static? She held the phone to her ear again, "Hello?" she asked again. Nothing but static answered her, but this time a soft clicking was heard in the background, slightly louder than the static. Annoyed, she flipped the phone closed and placed it on the desk in front of her, then took a sip of her Pink Lemonade. The phone rang again.

"Hello?" she asked. Static. A clap of thunder echoed through the air following behind a bright flash of lightning, rattling the windows of the front doors. Hanging up the phone again, she held onto it, positive it would ring again any minute. A second passed, two, three, four, five, and then it rang again. "Who are you?" she asked into the phone, annoyed at whoever was calling her with static.  

"Hillary? Are you alright?" asked a voice. It was her father. Hillary's eyes widened as she heard her father's voice through the speaker.

"Sorry daddy. Someone was prank calling me earlier, I thought it was them again" she answered.

"Ah. It's getting late. You should head home" he said. Hillary glanced at her watch, which indicated that it was now eleven thirty; she had been sitting at the front desk listening to music and reading her book for an hour now.

"Alright, I'll see you in a few minutes"

"Don't forget to lock up behind you"

"I won't. See you in a few" she said as she clicked her phone closed. She half expected it to begin ringing again, whoever who had been calling must have gotten their kicks out it. Packing up her things into her purse, she fished out a set of keys from her purse and headed towards the front doors. She was dreading walking out into the rain, but she knew she couldn't stay at the apartments all night, there wasn't anywhere for her to sleep. Locking the front doors, she headed across the parking lot to her white sedan, parked next to Andrew's red Hummer.

A fork of lightning stretched across the sky, bended around a lamp post, and headed directly towards her. Screaming, Hillary jumped behind her vehicle. The energy beam had landed right behind her, but hadn't returned to the sky in the split second that normal lightning bolts would. Turning to look at the bolt that stood still against the ground in front of her, she noticed a metallic looking figure standing inside the surging yellow light that was being emitted by it. The figure turned to face her, intrigued by the fear that was portrayed in her eyes. Hillary attempted to back away from whatever the hell it was, but her body had frozen in fear, her muscles hurt to move, and her breathing had picked up to the point where she might pass out from hyper ventilating. The figure reached out with one arm and pressed it against Hillary's face, a large amount of energy was forced through her veins, shutting down her organs, sending her into an unconscious state. An instant later, Hillary had disappeared with the flash of lightning as it returned to the sky from once it came.

 

~

 

"Goodnight Cheri" said one of the cooks that worked at The White Eagle. Eleven o'clock was closing time, it was now eleven thirty and they had just finished cleaning up the diner. Cheri was still cleaning off a few of the tables opposite the bar counter, the other waiters had already finished cleaning their area and had left to go home already.

"Goodnight Roger" Cheri responded to the cook. He was standing at the front doors, swinging his jacket over his shoulders, bracing himself for the run across the parking lot to his car. Her black hair was in a mess now, the customers that had left half an hour ago when the diner closed, had been causing such a ruckus that she had a hard time believing she was still sane. A lot of them had just walked into the diner so they could have someone to complain at, yell at, because someone they knew had gone missing. The customers that had already been in the diner complained back about them being too loud, and it slowly became a domino, crashing into one another and escalating till they had to throw everyone out into the parking lot and close up earlier than normal. She didn't believe the people who had been complaining about missing people, there had been too many of them, how could that many people go missing in that short time span? That's what confused her.

She continued to wipe the washcloth across the table top, spraying some cleaner onto it, attempting to get a coffee stain out of the tablecloth. Some of the customers had gotten into fights with one another, knocking over their drinks and sending food flying across the room. The stain didn't want to come out, it was being stubborn and she didn't have the patience left in her to put up with the stubborn stain. Grunting she tossed the washcloth through the small window behind the counter, landing it in the sink on the other side, and then placed the bottle of cleaner under the counter. She didn't feel like cleaning up the rest of the tables, she just wanted to go home. If she got in trouble for not cleaning her portion of the diner, she wouldn't care. She had her reasons, and they were damned good reasons, least she thought they were. Looking out the front windows, she watched Roger as he fiddled with his car keys, trying to unlock his vehicle, when a bolt of lightning came down directly on top of him, and a split second later, he was gone. His keys landing in the puddle of water he had been standing in.

Cheri's eyes widened as Roger disappeared in front of her. She climbed over the counter and stood directly in front of the window, looking out at the chain of keys as they washed toward the storm drain in the corner of the parking lot. What the hell? She asked herself. Nothing remained of him, not his clothes, smoking remains, nothing at all. Quickly climbing the counter again, she threw her own jacket over her shoulders and rushed out to where he had been standing. "Roger!" she called out, hoping he was still around to hear her. "Roger!" she called again, but the only answering sound was the thunder rolling over head, and the rain hammering against everything that came between it and the ground. Her black hair drooped down and covered her face from the weight of the water collecting in each strand. He was gone, missing, taken while in plain sight, by the storm, the lightning. Tilting her head, she looked into the sky, ignoring the rain as it collided with her eyes and face. "Give him back!" she shouted into the sky, as if whatever had taken Roger was still lingering in the air, waiting for her as well.

Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted a bolt of lightning stretching toward the ground, just across the street from where she was standing. As soon as it collided with the ground, time seemed to freeze, her muscles locked up and she couldn't move from where she was standing. The bright yellow glow caused Cheri to close one of her eyes; it seemed to be bright enough to burn her brain if she stared at it long enough. A metal figure began to move toward her, the glow following behind it, hiding its features from her, not that it would matter if she did see what it was, she would be knocked unconscious in a few moments and would forget what she had seen. Cheri's eyes widened as the figure moved close enough to her that if it had been breathing, she would feel it breathing on her face. She saw no eyes, no mouth, and no features at all, just a metallic outline of a person, glowing yellow like the bolt of lightning it had descended to the ground in. A cold sensation rushed through her veins and slowly everything turned black. In an instant, time unfroze and she had disappeared, leaving the parking lot empty once again.

 

~

 

In the center of the dark room stood a bed, the wall to the left of the doorway had a couch stationed against it; on the opposite side was another couch. A single light hung from the ceiling directly above the bed in the center of the room, dim, giving only enough light for anyone sitting on the couches, or standing around the outside of the room, to see the subject on the bed, but keeping the subject from seeing anyone else. Tracey instructed Andrew to lay Shay on the bed and then to take a seat on one of the couches. To the left of the door was a phone. After closing the door, Tracey lifted the phone and asked very quietly for a doctor to come down. She then took a seat on the other couch with Bill.

"What are you going to do to her?" Andrew asked. His eyes were focused on the only thing he could see: Shay.

"We're going to have the doctor examine her quickly, tell us when she'll be awake so we can find out the exact details of what happened?" Tracey answered. Her voice pierced though the dark room.

"But why are you guys helping her?" Andrew asked, "But not all those people outside?"

"Children are more important to us than adults. No offence" Tracey answered, "We're trying to find all the missing children first, before we start searching for young adults and above"

"Is that your personal decision?"

"No, the entire department decided on it. I personally don't really think we'll find anyone in this storm, but we've got to try" she answered as the door clicked quietly and a wave of orange light flooded into the room for a brief second as the doctor stepped into the darkness. "Dr. Duran, nice of you to join us" Tracey said as the doctor entered the room.

"So what've we got here?" asked the Doctor. His voice was dark and filled with annoyance. It sounded like he didn't like doing his job and just wanted to go home to his family, if he had one, he probably did.

"She's another victim of the abductions" Tracey answered. "Her nine year old daughter went missing about an hour ago" she added. Dr. Duran stepped up to the table, the light flooding over him. He had a weird hair colour, as if he had attempted to dye his hair three different colours at once, but only got one colour in the end. It was puke green, but in the darkness it looked like a dark green. He was wearing a white lab coat with a name tag on the right of his chest, indicating his name was Dr. Duran, but Andrew had already come to that conclusion. He walked around to the side of the bed and placed a pair of white gloves over his hands before he lifted Shay's left eyelid with his fingers. Her pupil expanded until her entire left eye had become black as the light from the lamp hanging above her flooded into her retina.

"Hmm" Dr. Duran said as he watched her pupil shrink again. He could tell what was wrong with her by watching her pupil? Letting go of her eyelid, he opened the right eye, and watched t as it expanded and then contracted back to normal size.

"What is it Dr?" Tracey asked as she watched the procedure.

"She definitely passed out from shock. I'm guessing she couldn't get over the fact that her daughter had been taken from underneath her like that" he said. His voice stayed the same: dark with a hint of annoyance in the background.

"Can you wake her up?" Tracey asked. Dr. Duran didn't respond he now was looking into Shay's mouth, using two fingers to keep her jaw muscles opened. Her tongue wasn't moving, but he could see that her throat was contracting and extracting, she was still breathing, which meant she could be woken up easily.

"Yes" he answered finally, stepping away from the table and vanishing into the darkness around it. He removed his gloves and tossed them into the trash can underneath the bed. Stepping forward again he placed his hands on either side of her head, and began to gently rub her temples. Hopefully if he stimulated her brain, it would awaken and wake her up with it.

Andrew sat patiently, watching, waiting, anxious to hear the story behind what happened to Kristi, anxious to find out what the cops would do with him when they were done getting the information they needed. Would they send him home? Would they make him stay here with her? He hopped he could stay here with her, keep her company, keep her awake in case the Officers needed her for anything else.

A low gurgle began to come from Shay as she began to cough up saliva that had collected in her throat. Dr. Duran lifted her up and patted her back gently, causing her to throw up whatever hadn't been dissolved in her stomach yet. Her eyes were wide, pupils fully enlarged again, breathing heavy, and sweat began to trickle its way down her face. "Where am I?" she asked, franticly taking in her surroundings, not that there was much for her to take it, everything around her was black.

"You're at the BHPD" Tracey answered as she stepped into the light, "We brought you here in hopes you could give us some more information about your daughters disappearance" she added.

Shay turned to face Tracey, eyes still wide. She had forgotten about Kristi, and now that Tracey had mentioned it, she began to panic once again.

"Calm down" Dr. Duran said as he rested his hands on her shoulders, trying to relax her.

"We're going to find your daughter for you, we just need some more information" Tracey said again. Shay nodded her head; she was finally ready to say what she had seen her in daughter's bedroom.

Chapter 4

Them

 

Shay continued to sit on the bed situated in the centre of the dark room she had awoken in. She felt alone even though she knew Andrew, Officer Tracey, Officer Bill, and Dr. Duran were in the room with her, she just couldn't see them. Sweat was slowly rolling down her face, slight panic was still in her mind, and the heat from the lamp was adding to that. She had her eyes closed, trying to remember the exact details of the person who she saw take her daughter. "I couldn't see the features of whoever it was; he was glowing yellow, like he was just some form of pure energy taking form of a body" Shay finally said, the picture of the glowing figure flooded her mind. Tears began to collect in the corner of her eyes, under her eyelids, as she watched her daughter get taken from her again. "And as soon as he touched my daughter, they both disappeared in a flash of light that was followed by a clap of thunder. It was like he was the lightning" she continued, still watching the movie play out in her head.

Andrew sat still, quiet, listening to what Shay was saying. He kind of believed what she was saying, but he was sure the Officers and the Doctor didn't.  Dr. Duran stepped around the shadows, keeping himself hidden from Shay, and whispered something into Officer Tracey's ear, Andrew couldn't quite make it out; he was listening to Shay's story. "I know it sounds really crazy, but it's the truth" Shay blurted out as she turned her head in the direction the Doctors whispered came from. Tears flung from her eyes as she quickly turned her head, her breathing was picking up now. She was staring into the shadows, listening for what they would do next.

"Ms. Lynn, I believe you're suffering from post-insanity" Dr. Duran said, his voice carrying from the shadows in front of her. "You're still in a state of shock from losing your daughter and you're beginning to imagine things" he continued, his voice hadn't changed; it still sounded like he was annoyed with her for no reason what-so-ever.

"You're suffering from post-insanity you bas-" she began but was cut off as she felt Andrew's arms wrap around her, covering her mouth with one of this hands. A few muffled words attempted to escape his hands, but nothing came out.

"That's enough, can't you see she's under a lot of stress. You're just pushing all the wrong buttons" Andrew said quietly, but loud enough to be heard over Shay's muffled screams into his hand. She was breathing heavier now than she had been before, she was furious at the doctor for claiming she was suffering from insanity. "Just give her some time to settle down, her mind's still all over the place" he lied. Shay stopped screaming into his hands and glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. Did he believe her? Or was he just trying to settle everyone down? She hopped he believed her, she'd be happy if just one person believed her.

"Mr. Walker, are you her doctor?" Dr. Duran said as he stepped into the light, shadows stretched across his body, making him look as scary as his voice sounded when you couldn't see him standing in the shadows.

"No, but I don't believe you are either" Andrew said, still holding one hand over Shay's mouth, keeping her from saying anything at all. "You may have your degree in Medical Science and Human Recourses, but that doesn't mean you can kick her while she's down" he added with a tone of annoyance in his voice.

"Mr. Walker, I'm going to have to ask you kindly to leave the room. You're disturbing official police work. If you want us to find her daughter, we're going to need you to co-operate with us" Tracey ordered. Andrew stared into the darkness over Dr. Duran's shoulder before sighing.

"Fine" he said as he let go of Shay and walked over to the door. A wave of light flooded into the room, blinding Shay for a split second before Andrew disappeared into the hallway.

 

~

 

I can't believe this. She's in no state of mind to be pushed like that Andrew thought as he walked up and down the hallway like a patrolman. He wanted to just kick the door down, grab Shay by the arm and run out of there with her, but he knew they would come after him, and possible shoot at him for getting in the way of police business. He pounded his fist against the wall to his left before he headed down the remainder of the hallway until he came across a staircase that led up to the remainder of the Police Station. He had nothing else to do while he waited for them to finish interrogating Shay. The rest of the police station was just as plainly painted as the hallway he had just come from, it was also as empty as the hallway. The only people that he could see were the clerks that sat behind their big desks, typing away on their computers, chewing their gum like their life depended on the substance. A few uniformed officers were sitting in the lounge, eating doughnuts while they waited for their shift to be over and that was about it.

"Can I help you?" asked one of the clerks as Andrew passed by her desk. She had her dark brown red hair done up in a ponytail, keeping it out of her face. Andrew turned to look at her as she spoke to him and shook his head.

"No, I'm just waiting" he answered. The girl raised an eyebrow and continued to chew on her gum.

"Waiting on what may I ask?"

"Officer Bill and Tracey are interrogating a friend of mine, and they asked me to wait out here"

"Oh, was that who called for Dr. Duran?" she asked, lowering her eyebrow back to its original place. Andrew nodded his head in response. "Well it's kind of boring here at night, you any good at cards?" she asked as she opened a drawer on her desk and fished out a deck of cards. Andrew looked at the deck of cards and shrugged.

"Depends on the game" he responded.

"Poker?" she asked.

"Sure" he answered as he grabbed a chair from the next desk and pulled it up to the front of the desk. She also pulled out a small container of poker chips and spread them out equally between the two of them. Andrew had never really been all that good at poker, but a few of his co-workers at the White Eagle often played it when while they waited for customers to show up after opening. At least this would get his mind off Shay and hopefully pass the time a lot quicker than it would have had he waited in the hallway for them to finish.

 

~

 

After about an hour, Shay had finally gotten tired of the Doctor accusing her of post-insanity and through a fit. She quickly got off the bed she had been sitting on for the past hour and flipped it over, attempting to throw it at Dr. Duran, but failed as it was too heavy to really throw anywhere, it just toppled over and crashed onto the floor. She wished she knew where the door was so she could escape into the hallway and find Andrew, but she hadn't been paying a whole lot of attention to the direction in which Andrew had left in an hour ago.

"Ms. Lynn, please calm down" Officer Tracey said as she appeared from the shadows and lifted the bed up and placed it back on its feet. "We want to help you, but you know just as well as I know, that there's no intelligent life outside of our planet, so you must have seen something else, not aliens" Tracey added. Shay stood in the darkness and watched Officer Tracey and Dr. Duran. Everyone was turning against her, maybe Andrew didn't believe her either, but why did she really care if he believed her? She barely knew him, she had just met him a few hours ago, yet she believed that he actually cared for her, and she couldn't explain why she felt like that.

"I know what I saw, and no matter what you or anyone says is going to change my mind" she said as she finally found the doorknob. Quickly turning it she bolted out into the hallway and away from the dark room.

"Ms. Lynn!" called Tracey as she appeared out of the dark room, following closely behind Shay. One of her hands was on the handle of her gun, she hoped she didn't have to pull it on Shay, but if she hesitated and fought back, she wouldn't have any other choice than to threaten so she would calm down. Acting out like this, wasn't going to make finding Kristi any easier for her.

Coming to the staircase, Shay gripped the hand railing and quickly ascended to the rest of the police station. "Stay away from me!" she shouted behind her at Officer Tracey, tears began to collect in the corner of her eyes again. Bursting into the main lobby, she spotted Andrew staring at her; three cards were in his hands. She quickly ran over to him and wrapped her arms around him. He dropped the cards he was holding and wrapped his arms around her in return.

"Ms. Lynn, you're not making this any easier for us" Tracey said as she stepped into the mail lobby and looked at the two of them, and then released a soft sigh.

"I don't need your help. I'll find my daughter myself" Shay cried into Andrew's shoulder. Her words muffled, but audible. Andrew still had his arms around her.

Officer Tracey sighed again. "If that's what you want, we'll just leave it alone" she said. Wasn't something she wanted to do, she wanted to help, but Shay had made it too complicated for her to follow along anymore. Turning away from them, Tracey headed off to her office, Dr. Duran and Officer Bill followed behind her. Once they were gone, Shay lifted her head from Andrew's shoulder and looked into his eyes.

"You believe me don't you?" she asked, a few tears were still running down her cheeks. Andrew nodded his head. He didn't say anything though, he probably didn't have anything he could say that would re-assure her that he believed her and that he wanted to help her.

 

~

 

After a few minutes of standing around the police station, Andrew and Shay headed out to find their own answers to their questions. The only setback for them now, was that neither of them had brought their car downtown to the police station, they had both got a ride in the police cruiser with Officer Tracey and Bill. The rain continued to fall from the sky, pounding against the glass doors that stood between Andrew and Shay and the storm raging outside. They weren't dressed properly for the weather, nor did they have the proper equipment for the flooded sidewalks and streets. Andrew was still wearing his pajama's, he didn't have any time to change clothes before the cops arrived and pulled him along with them so he could carry Shay's unconscious body. For a few minutes, the two of them just stood there, staring out at the rain covered sidewalk that stretched out beyond the front doors when the lady that Andrew had been playing Poker with stepped up behind them.

"You two need a ride?" she asked politely. Her voice was soothing and soft. Andrew glanced over his shoulder at her and smiled a bit.

"We don't know where to yet, but that would be great," he responded as he looked back outside. The large crowd that had been formed just outside when they had arrived had disappeared, though they had left their signs they had been carrying.

"By the looks of it, the crowds gone, so it should be safe to head to my car now. I got off shift an hour ago, but was too afraid to try and reach my car with that mob out there" she said with a soft laugh as she popped her umbrella that she had been carrying up and held it over the three of them as they crossed the parking lot to her car. She drove a grayish Ford Explorer V2, was one of the newest version of it, test versions, fuel efficient types. Andrew and Shay both climbed into the back seat while the girl, who neither of them had received a name for, took the driver's seat and quickly backed out of her parking spot and opened up onto the street, driving away from the police station. "So do you two have anywhere to stay?" she asked.

"We both live in the Chapel Avenue Apartment Complex on the other side of town, if you could drop us off there" Andrew responded. Both their cars were there, or at least he knew his was, he didn't know what Shay drove, so wasn't sure if she even had a car, let alone if she had it parked at the complex.

"Alright, I've got to head up that way anyways, pay a visit to my dad before heading home" she said as she continued to drive. The windshield wipers on full power to keep the splatter of rain off the windshield, allowing her almost perfect sight of the road ahead of her. Aside from the fact that the chance of them hitting another car or another person was pretty much so small that if looked at on a pie chart, or any kind of chart, you wouldn't even be able to see its set of data. "By the way, my names Cassandra, but you can just call me Cassie if you want" Cassie introduced herself finally.

"Nice to meet you Cassie, I'm Andrew"

"And, I'm Shay"

"Nice to meet you both" Cassie said with a smile as she looked over her shoulder quickly at the two of them before focusing her eyes back on the road ahead of her. "So why were you guys at the police station? If you don't mind me asking" Cassie asked as she came to a stop at a red light. Andrew looked to Shay, to see if she wanted to answer, but she was too busy looking out the window next to her, looking at something that he couldn't see, something in her own mind.

"Well Shay's daughter went missing, along with all those other people that I'm sure you've heard about going missing, since the storm hit a few hours ago" Andrew responded and he took a deep breath. He hoped Shay didn't get all emotional again as he brought up her daughters disappearance again, but she continued to stare off at something that only she could see, and paid no attention to what he was saying. Maybe she was in a state of post-insanity, maybe he was just following along because he felt bad for her, at this point; he could no longer tell what was real and what was not. Half the town was reported as missing, the police force was trying their hardest to find everyone, but no traces were left by anyone who they were looking for, making it almost impossible for the police, or anyone who was looking, to find who they were searching for.

Cassie seemed to staring at whatever Shay was looking at, because she too was staring out in the distance that Shay was looking, she didn't seem to notice Andrew answer her question, but instead of responding to his response, she said something else: "Did you see that?" she asked, pointing out the passenger window, down the street that she and Shay seemed to be focused on.

"No, what did you see?"Andrew asked.

"I saw it" Shay answered as she fiddled with the handle of her door before bolting down the street to whatever it was they had seen. Cassie sighed and turned the car down the street, swinging the open door closed before following after Shay. Andrew still couldn't see whatever they were seeing, so looked franticly to find out what it was.

"What did you guys see?" Andrew asked again as he climbed out of the car and stood next to Shay, who was standing in front of a large black mark on the sidewalk.

"There was a guy standing here just a moment ago, and just as the light changed to green, he was stricken by lightning, and then he was gone" Shay finally answered. Cassie nodded her head.

"People don't just explode when they get struck by lightning" Andrew said as he looked at the black spot on the sidewalk, it was just black paint, or a stain, it was burnt right into the sidewalk, the lightning must have hit right there, where this guy had been standing, and burnt him so badly that he turned to dust and blew away in the wind.

"Do you, do you think this is how everyone's been disappearing?" Shay asked as she looked up to Cassie, who had the same expression of shock displayed on her face as Shay had on hers. Andrew couldn't believe what he was hearing.

"What are you talking about? Are you trying to say that the lightning's been abducting people?" he asked.

"Isn't it possible?" Shay asked, looking to Andrew now.

"No, lightning may be hot, but it's not hot enough to make someone blow up like that" Andrew replied.

"No, not blow up..." Shay trailed off. "I mean, isn't it possible that there is other life out there?" she asked, "And they're using this storm as a mean to abduct the citizens of Berlin Heights?" she added. Andrew still couldn't believe what he was hearing; it seemed so far-fetched to be real.

"I'm sure that's possible, but do you really want to believe that is the reason why everyone's been disappearing? That this is just some game for some Alien Race?" Andrew asked. Shay looked at him intently, she had believed in him at one point, believed that he believed her story, but now she wasn't so sure she should have trusted him, he was doubting what she believed to be happening, and right now, she needed someone she could trust.

"I can't believe you don't believe me" she blurted out as she turned away from him, had it not been raining, tears would have been visible in the corners of her eyes. "I trusted you, and now you doubt me" she continued, "Just leave me alone" she said as she took off down the street again, running through the rain.

Chapter 5

The Calm before the Storm

 

"Shay, come back,"Andrew called after Shay as she continued to walk away from him. He hadn't meant it like that, he did believe her, and he just didn't want her to set her heart on one idea, especially one as radical as the one she had just conjured. She didn't seem to hear him calling out to her though; she just continued to walk away from him. Andrew quickly looked to Cassie who was standing beside him on the sidewalk. Her dark red hair wasn't in the pony tail that it had previously been in, it now draped over her head and face, the rain keeping it down. Until just now, Andrew hadn't even realized that they were standing in the rain; he glanced up at the dark sky as a fork of lightning skidded overhead, followed by a rolling wave of thunder, causing the windows from the stores Andrew was standing beside, to shake in their frames. His hair also hung heavily over his head, but his hair wasn't long enough to cover his face like Cassie's was. "Shay," Andrew called again as he ran down the sidewalk toward her. She still made no sign that she could hear him, or wanted to hear him.

Cassie climbed into her car and followed behind them, this was between the two of them, and she had no reason to get into it. When they had settled it, she would pick them up and take them both to their apartments and then she would head to her father's and then head to her own apartment.

"Shay, let me explain," Andrew said as he grabbed her arm and turned her to face him. She stared directly into his eyes for a split second before tearing her arm out of his grasp and continuing down the sidewalk. "I do believe you Shay," he began again as he followed after her, "I can believe that Aliens are abducting people for their experiments," he continued as he attempted to grab her arm again.

"You're just saying that to make me feel better," she said as she sped up again, hearing his footsteps right behind her.

"If that's the reason behind what's been happening, I just don't want you to set your heart on that single idea, when there could be other logical explanations for the disappearing," Andrew said as he grabbed her arm again, pulled her around to face him, and locked his lips with hers.

Shay stood there, shocked that he was kissing her. Her eyes locked on his eyelids, but eventually closed her eyes too. It had been too long since she had felt a man's embrace, ever since Kristi's father ditched her and Shay, she hadn't felt like this for any other man, she hated all other men because of how he had treated her, but now, Andrew was throwing his own life away to help her get her daughter back. If this kiss wasn't to prove that, then what was it proving?

"If this is really the work of an Alien species, then what do we do next?" he asked as he took his lips away from hers. He had his forehead resting against hers now, eyes digging into hers. She stared back into his for a few moments before answering his question.

"There's only one place in Berlin Heights that could help us. The Shadow Club," Shay answered, staring back into his eyes.

"The Shadow Club, What're they?"

"They own a shop in the mall near our apartments. They sell books on the Occult, Aliens, demonic rituals, anything you need to worship Satan or some other evil unseen entity," Shay answered as she looked over at Cassie's white SUV that was parked at the curb beside them. "Thank you Andrew, you have no idea how much this means to me," she added before she let go of him and climbed into the back of the SUV.

Andrew walked around to the other side of the vehicle and opened the back door, "You don't need to thank you," he said as he climbed in.

"So you two made up?" Cassie asked with a small smile on her face.

"Everything's good," Shay answered. It was the first normal thing Andrew had heard her since he met her, maybe things would start to look good from here on out. If this Shadow Club could tell them anything about Aliens and how they worked, there might be a chance that they could save Kristi and all of the other missing Berlin Heights residents.

"Should I drop you guys off at your apartments still? Or is there somewhere else you want to go?" Cassie asked as she put the SUV into drive and pulled a U-Turn and headed back down the street to her original route she was taking before the small detour.

"Our apartments will be fine. We can use our own vehicles from there, we don't want to get you involved in this," Shay said as she stared at the sky out her window again.

 

~

 

"I can't believe she just left," Officer Bill said as he opened the door to the department garage, where they had parked their cruiser when they first arrived a few hours ago with Shay and Andrew.

"What're you going to do?" Officer Tracey asked as she followed behind him, smiling as he held the door open for her. The crowd that had formed outside the station had disappeared, so it was safe for them to attempt to go home for the night. The garage was empty except for the police cruisers that stayed there when they weren't being used. Officer Bill and Tracey were the last two employees of the BHPD to leave. Tracey drove a red Dodge Ram 1500 and Bill drove a red Mitsubishi Lancer. Fishing the keys from her pocket, Tracey pressed the unlock button and climbed up into the driver's seat. Bill's vehicle was parked next to hers. "So what're your plans for the rest of the night?" she asked as she ran her hands over the leather steering wheel. It felt good to feel her car beneath her again, made her feel powerful, more powerful than she already was being a cop.

"I don't know, probably watch a movie, and eat some popcorn, how about you?" Bill asked as he stood in front of the driver's door to his vehicle. He was leaning against the frame, looking up at his partner.

Tracey shrugged her shoulders. "Fall asleep with a big old bowl of ice cream, if it hasn't melted yet," she answered with a small laugh. When she wasn't working, she was a lot easier to get along, or at least that's what all her friends told her. When she was in uniform she was mean, powerful, but when she was off duty, she was sweet, calm, and nice. Bill had once told her: 'I'm surprised you don't have a husband, or a boyfriend. You'd make an amazing wife.' She had taken that as a compliment and had always thought Bill was crushing on her, but she found out shortly after that he was already in a relationship. "What ever happened to your girlfriend?" she asked as the memories ran through her head now.

Bill looked up at her for a moment, "Emma?" he asked. He asked it like he had had a few different girlfriends, but Emma was the only one Tracey knew about it.

"Yeah, whatever happened to her?"

"She moved to Paris."

"Really, when?"

"Two years ago."

"Are you two still talking?"

"No, she broke up with me the day before her flight."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"I didn't think it really mattered."

Tracey climbed out of her vehicle and walked around Bill's car and stood behind him. He turned around to face her as she came up to him. "How've you been holding up then?" she asked as she leaned against the pillar erected next to his vehicle.

"Alright I guess. Try not to think about it too much. Why?"

"You're my partner, Bill, I care about you."

Bill stared at her for a few moments, confused. She'd never acted like she cared about him, why did she suddenly care about him now? "I guess. I just didn't think you really cared about my relationships."

Tracey smiled and leaned forward and kissed him on the lips. She laughed a little at the expression displayed on his face afterwards. "Oh come on, I know you had a crush on me when you first joined the force."

Bill stayed quiet, his eyes wide open, lips parted slightly, as if he was about to say something, but his mind had locked up and the train of thought had crashed into a wall and collapsed, making it impossible for him to locate the words he wanted. A muffled moan escaped his lips as a single bead of sweat slowly trickled down his forehead.

"Cat got your tongue?" she asked as she kissed him again. "I'll get him out of there," she added in between kisses. Outside a wave of thunder crashed against the town, rumbling through the ground like an earth quake. Tracey slipped her hands from her jean pockets and wrapped them around Bill's neck and pulled him closer to her, keeping her lips against his. Another wave of thunder echoed through the ground. Bill had loosened up now and placed his arms on her waist. Tracey smiled into the smile as she felt his hands on her hips and felt him push against her, putting the feeling into the kiss.

After a few moments Tracey pulled away from the kiss with a smile on her face. "I told you I cared," she said as she leaned against the pillar behind her again, slipping her hands into her pockets again.

Bill grinned, "How'd you know I had a crush on you?" he asked as he leaned against his car, listening to the thunder rolling overhead and the rain pounding against the garage door just behind him.

"It was quite obvious if you ask me," Tracey answered with a light giggle, "I was your teacher in the academy, and I could tell by the way you looked at me, that you liked me," she explained. She giggled again when Bill blushed and turned away from her.

"It was that obvious?" he asked as he tried to hide the red flush on his cheeks. Tracey giggled again.

"Then when you came up to me and asked if I could be your partner," Tracey continued, a smile spread across her face like a knife spreading butter across fresh bread. "You were so nervous and cute," she added as she walked around his car to her truck. "See you tomorrow?"

Bill looked over his car at her and smiled. "You know it."

Tracey smiled, blew him a kiss, and then closed the driver's door before pulling the large pickup truck out of the parking spot and up toward the garage door. As she neared the large metal doors, they began to slide upwards, revealing the storm havocked town outside.

Bill climbed into his vehicle and followed after her. They lived at separate ends of town, so from here on out, they wouldn't see one another until work tomorrow morning, whenever tomorrow morning came. If this storm stayed all night, the remaining people of the town would have a hard time knowing when it was morning. Honking his car horn twice before he turned to the right, the opposite direction Tracey had departed in; he headed home for the night.

Tracey lived by herself at the opposite end of town from Bill; at this point she was wishing she lived closer to him, but knew it had been a long day at work, and they would both be extremely tired and probably wouldn't be up to playing around like she was thinking about in her head. Tracey had never been attractive to any one before. She had always been too enveloped in her work to ever care about a relationship, but now that she had kissed Bill, and had revealed all of his inner emotions about her to himself, she was, for the first time in her life, thinking of having a relationship with him. As she neared her street, she realized what a bad idea this was going to be. She lived on a hillside, and with the reckless downpour, it would be hard to climb the slope, even in her Dodge Ram. She pressed the gas pedal to the floor in hopes she would have enough power to climb the slippery slope in front of her, even turned on four wheel drive, but that didn't even work. There was like a river of water rushing in the opposite direction and it was taking her Ram with it.

As the car revved and tried to climb the waterfall road, Tracey spotted something coming toward her car. What the hell is that? She asked herself as she kept the pedal to the floor. As the object got closer Tracey figured out what it was. It was a tree; it had been ripped from the ground by the wind and was being washed down the street by the rain. Tracey began to panic as the large tree came directly toward her, the only way out would be to hit reverse and let the water take her, but the log would go wherever she went, and it was too close for her to attempt and ditch the car, it would collide with the vehicle before she got the door open and the seatbelt off. Quickly letting the gas pedal go loose, Tracey ducked under the steering wheel as the large tree smashed into the windshield of her Ram, breaking the glass and bending the frame of the car to a point where it looked like it would break off if hit again. The tree was still on the hood of her car as the water pushed the Ram back down the hill and onto level ground again. "That was close," she said as she sat up in her seat and looked out of the shattered. Steam had begun to rise from under the hood of her car now; the tree must have busted up the motor pretty badly. "Great, doesn't look like I'll be driving the rest of the way," she said as she unbuckled her seatbelt and climbed out of the car.

The tree looked like it had been torn right out of the ground without any effort at all. The wind wasn't that strong, was it? The water on the street was almost up to her knees and was freezing cold. She looked up the hill that she had been trying to drive up; it was like a waterfall with the amount of water rushing down it. She only had a block to walk, but she highly doubted she'd be able to walk up the waterfall if her Ram hadn't been able to drive up it. The rain began to sting her face as it hammered against her like little tiny nails made of ice, after standing there for a few moments. She reached into the car and pulled the keys out of the ignition and made her way to the side of the road. A wave of thunder rolled overhead and crashed into the clouds, echoing across the night sky. She glanced up for a second when she saw a fork of lightning stretch itself across the sky, curve around an imaginary pole, and head directly at her. As it landed, the rain around her seemed to freeze in mid air; she was no longer getting wet. She squinted her eyes at the frozen bolt of lightning stuck in the pavement in front of her and quickly noticed that there was something standing in the light. Her eyes widened as the figure turned to face her. Its metallic body gleamed in the yellow-golden light. "Holy shit, she was telling the truth," Tracey said as she tried to back away from the figure, but her body was frozen, her muscles had seized to work and it hurt too much to even try to move them only a little bit. "What the hell are you?" she yelled at the metallic figure as it slowly began to walk toward her.

It made no sign that it heard her or that it understand what she had said. It stopped directly in front of her and two large white eyes opened and peered into hers. An arm rose up and rested against her cheek, sending a wave of energy through her veins, shutting down all of her organs and sending her into an unconscious state. "How many more are there?" asked the metallic figure, its voice sounded like it was talking through a large metal tube used for plumbing. Had anyone heard it, they wouldn't have been able to figure out if it was a male or female speaking.

"Four," answered another metallic voice that came from absolutely nowhere, but was only audible to the other metallic being.

"Good."

Chapter 6

The Shadow Club

 

The parking lot for Chapel Avenue Residential Apartments seemed too deserted as Cassie pulled her Ford Explorer around the curb and up to the front doors. The three of them: Andrew, Shay, and Cassie, sat in silenced for a few moments, listening to the windshield wipers move back and forth across the windshield, the rain hammering the vehicle, and the waves of thunder rolling overhead. After a few minutes of silence, Cassie finally spoke, saying: "Are you guys sure you don't need any more help?"

Shay had been staring out the window next to her, watching the rain drizzle down the glass. Her mind had once again drifted elsewhere. "I'm pretty sure we can take care of ourselves, thanks though," Andrew responded as he nudged Shay with his elbow.

"What?" Shay asked as she turned from the window to look at Andrew.

"We're here," he answered.

"Oh.",

Andrew unbuckled his seatbelt and swung open his door and climbed out before closing it behind him. Cassie's window slid down and she looked out at him. "Good luck you two," she said. Andrew smiled a little.

"Thanks for everything we-" he was cut off by Shay's scream. He quickly ran around the Explorer to Shay and spotted what she had seen: Hillary's purse, lying in the in the flooded parking lot, drenched.

"They got her," Shay said as she knelt down and picked up the purse, it was soaking wet, it would be a miracle if any of Hillary's electronic device that she had in it still worked. Cassie had leaned over to look out the passenger seat window to see what they had found. Opening the door slightly, keeping the rain from entering, she saw the purse in Shay's hand.

"Whose is that?" Cassie asked.

Shay turned to Cassie and let out a sigh, "The manager's daughter, she was on duty tonight. I guess they got her when she was trying to unlock her car," Shay answered as she held the purse close to her. Cassie sighed as well, as the moments ticked pass, more and more of the town was disappearing. Eventually it would just be the three of them, or worse: none of them.

"Alright, well good luck, I've got to get going," Cassie said as she continued to lean out the sliver crack from the door.

"Thank you Cassie," Shay said with a small smile, the first Andrew had seen since he met her earlier that night. After Cassie had driven away, leaving Andrew and Shay alone at their apartments, the two of them decided to have something to eat; Shay needed it more than Andrew did at least. She had been through so much more than Andrew, and by the looks on her face, she was exhausted. The would have rested for a while, but they were afraid that if they tried to get some sleep, when they woke up, they'd either have been abducted and were as good as dead, or the storm would pass while they slept and they'd never get their friends and family back.

"Can you cook?" Shay asked as she stood facing the door to her apartment.

"Yeah I can, why?" Andrew asked in return as he unlocked the door to his apartment.

"I don't want to go into my apartment; I don't want to see all of Kristi's stuff," she answered as she turned to him, her eyes looking like they would begin to water any moment.

"Sure thing," Andrew said as he stepped aside to let Shay enter his apartment. At this point, he wasn't worried about her seeing his collection of magazines that contained pictures upon pictures of half naked women, he hoped she didn't see them, but he didn't really care either. Closing the door behind him, Andrew walked across the living to the kitchen and swung open the fridge. It had only been a few hours, so most of the food that was in his fridge would have still been good to eat for another few hours before it began to grow old without refrigeration. "Anything specific you want to eat?" he asked as he stared into the fridge, looking at what he had to eat.

"Doesn't matter to me," she answered as she slumped onto the couch in the living room, but paid no attention to the magazines thrown about the coffee table in front of her. "What do you got?" she asked as she looked over the back of the couch at him. As much as she was worried about finding her daughter, she wouldn't be able to do it on an empty stomach, and she was sure Andrew wouldn't be much help either if he was also hungry.

Andrew continued to dig through the fridge, "I've got a few different kinds of meat that I'll have to use before they go bad, you want a sandwich?" he asked as he looked from the fridge to her.

"Sure."

"Alright," Andrew said as he pulled out the crisper that contained the meat and placed the entire crisper drawer on the counter next to him, in one of the cupboards below was a loaf of bread. "So how do you know about this 'Shadow Club'?" he asked as he began to prepare the food for the two of them, as quickly as he could.

"Kristi's father worked there, that's all he seemed interested in talking about when I was with him," she answered with a sigh; the memories of him deeply agitated her. "He scared me some days when he came home from work, talking about aliens and Satan, and how he wished he could see them both during his lifetime," she continued, her eyes were closed now. "He had attempted to summon something in this apartment once, but he failed at it, and then freaked out at me," she looked into her mind and began to tell the story to Andrew.

 

~

 

"It had been a nice day out, the day he left me and Kristi behind, and I was heading home from work with Kristi, after picking her up from school. The sky was clear, not a single cloud hung above us, just the sun beaming down on us like a spotlight on the world," she began, "I had been promoted that day as well, so I was excited to go home and tell Damien about it, maybe go out somewhere fancy for dinner to celebrate," she paused and took a deep breath, clearly still upset about what Damien had done to her, if that Damien was the father, at this point Andrew wasn't sure if he was just a roommate or not. "He got off work fifteen minutes before me and was always home before me, waiting for me to hold me and kiss me, but not this day, this day was different. Something must have happened at work because that was the first time I had seen him that obsessed with whatever he did at his work, he never did tell me," she continued, "I hadn't make the conclusion that he worked with this kind of stuff from his rambles every night about it, I thought it was just a hobby he had come to enjoy, but I followed him to work one day, and then it all made sense to why he acted the way he did some nights, but it didn't explain the way he acted that one particular night," she paused again and took another breath. Andrew stayed in the kitchen, preparing their midnight snack while he listened.

"I unlocked the apartment door, but instead of walking into my cosy two bedroom apartment that I had always loved, I walked into Hell. Damien had trashed everything in a furious attempt to do something; I didn't know what it was at that point. He had painted some symbol on the floor in white; he claimed it to be a demonic summoning symbol that he was going to use to summon a demon from Hell to do his bidding," she said as she stood up from the couch and began to walk around the living room, marking with her finger where the circle was, it had taken up almost the entire living room, if hers was the same size as Andrew's. "He was sitting in the corner, knees to his chest, gripping a thick black and red book, and he looked like he hadn't showered that day, which was odd because I was woken up that morning by him singing in the shower," she said as she now stood in the corner of the room, indicating that was where Damien had been, she had smile on her face for a brief moment as she remembered Damien singing in the shower every morning, she had simply adored his singing voice, she was certain she still would, but she didn't want to be anywhere near him to hear it ever again. "I stood just outside the circle he had painted, holding Kristi still, afraid to let her go, in case he had already summoned something and it would attack her if I let go of her, and I just stared at him, in complete shock about what he had done, or was about to do for that matter. After a few minutes of staring at one another he finally got up and stepped into the circle's centre, stepping over the paint marks like they were sacred or something," she added as she moved to the middle of the room, playing it out in her head so she could remember it all exactly as it happened.

"'Stay back!' he ordered me as he opened the book to a random page. Suddenly he became very serious, like if I didn't do as he told me, he'd seriously hurt me, so I did as he ordered and stepped away from the circle, backed up against the door," she continued, pointing a finger at the door to Andrew's apartment, "He then began to chant something, I couldn't understand it at all, probably was in Latin, and I never took Latin in High School, I took Spanish, seemed more logical than learning a dead language no one spoke anymore. Anyways, he began to chant something in Latin in an attempt to summon some demon from Hell that he could control," she paused for a moment to take a breath as she was out of breath. Andrew placed the food on the table and beckoned her over; she took a seat next to him, but continued to tell the story between bites of her sandwich. "After he finished casting his spell, he stood in the centre of the circle for a few minutes; I still stood against the door holding Kristi in my arms, afraid that any minute the floor would tear open and fire would reach out of the holes in the ground and some kind of demonic creature would crawl up and stand in front of Damien, but after what seemed like forever, nothing happened and then he began to freak out," she said as she paused to take another bite of her sandwich. She didn't continue for a while though, she just sat there and ate the rest of her sandwich.

"He tossed his book to the floor and ran over to me and started yelling in my face, I don't think he cared if Kristi heard him curse, but I did. I tried to cover her ears, but he just screamed louder, calling me names and a whole bunch of other things. He apparently believed that because I was in the room with him, that his summoning didn't work, but it didn't work, because it's impossible to summon a demon, they don't exist," she said as she stood up from her chair and moved over to the fridge to see if there was anything to drink. Pulling out a bottle of water, she cracked the lid and took a long glug before continuing. "The look in his eyes scared me more than anything had ever scared me before, it was horrifying. I felt like I was looking into the eyes of an actual demon, it horrified me. Then he pulled a small dagger out of nowhere, it had some weird inscriptions on, probably in Latin as well, and right in front of Kristi, he dug it into me," she said as she lifted the back of her shirt to reveal a fairly large scar on her side, just above her waist. Andrew looked over to where she was standing and looked at the scar she had from where Damien had stabbed her long ago.

"Ouch."

"At first it didn't hurt," she continued with a nod of her head, lowering her shirt and taking her seat at the table across from him again, placing the bottle of water in front of her. "At first I just stood there, shocked that he had just dug a knife into my side, the pain didn't trigger until after he pulled it out and I felt the blood pouring down my skin. 'You just had to be here didn't you? I could have succeeded had you not shown up!' he yelled at me as he pushed me aside and swung open the door and walked out into the hallway. I didn't know what to say, I wanted to stop him, try to help him, but he seemed so distant from me," she said as she took a pause to drink from her bottle of water. Her throat must have been dry from telling this entire story like that. Andrew didn�t mind her pauses; it gave him some time to attempt to process it all in his head before she started again. "'You'll pay for this!' he yelled at me before he took off down the hall towards the stairs at the other end. I haven't seen him since. I changed the locks on the apartment and have been living there with Kristi ever since," she finally finished. It was a very strange story indeed; at least Andrew thought it was strange.

 

~

 

Shay had flopped onto the couch once again, tired from all that had happened to her in the past few hours. Her daughter had been abducted by some strange race of extraterrestrial life forms that travelled through the lightning; she had been taken to the Police Department and questioned about what she had seen, and then called 'Insane,' she had been furious at Andrew for not believing in her, only to realize he did believe in her, he just didn't want to see her get hurt if what she believed wasn't true. Now she lay in his apartment, resting her head on his lap while he gently stroked her hair while looking through the phone book to see if he could find the phone number for The Shadow Club. She knew the address of the store, could easily direct him there, but neither of them wanted to drive all the way down there to find out no one was even there, which would probably be the case, the store was probably closed now, at one o'clock in the morning. They had picked up Hillary's purse from the parking lot when Cassie had dropped them off half an hour ago, and surprisingly, her cell phone still worked, it hadn't been completely destroyed from being in a puddle for who knows how long.

"21 Knox St.?" Andrew asked as he stopped his finger next to the only Shadow Club that he could find in the phone book. Shay nodded her head slightly, loving the feeling of his hand running smoothly through her blonde hair that no longer sat in a ponytail.

"That's it."

"(725) 733-4234," Andrew said as he put the book on the coffee table. Shay had Hillary's cell phone in her hand and dialled the number as he said the numbers. As soon as she pressed the last number, the dial tone began to ring. The two of them sat in silence as they waited for either an answering machine to pick up, or for the owner of the store to answer, neither of which happened. One minute passed and it was still ringing, then two minutes, then three, and finally an answering machine picked up and a female's voice came over the speakers.

"Thank you for calling The Shadow Club, we're not around right now to take your call, meaning you've called while we're on lunch, or we're closed for the night. If you'd like to reach me on my cell, call 225-6742, if I still don't answer, leave a message and your number where I can reach you, and I'll get back to you as soon as possible. Thank you."

Shay didn't know that the owner of the store was a female; a series of different thoughts flooded her mind as she pressed the end key and dialed the female had given so they could reach her outside of her store. This time they didn't have to wait very long to get a response, after a few seconds the same female answered, it was another recording.

"You've reached Alice Rodriquez; I'm not able to take your call right now, leave a message and your number where I can reach you, and I'll get back to you as soon as possible."

After the beep sounded, Shay hung up the phone, flipping it closed and placing it on the coffee table with the phone book. "Well that didn't get us anywhere," Shay said with a sigh.

"I think we should still go check it out, if she's got surveillance, they'll be out because the storms knocked out all source of electricity, and if we break a window, she'll probably think the storm threw something through it," Andrew suggested.

"But then how did her answering machine pick up?" Shay asked as she sat up and looked at him. She wanted to try it; she wanted to find out what was going on as fast as she could so she could save her daughter, but she didn't want to get caught breaking into a store.

"Oh, right, didn't think about that," Andrew said with a sigh. That plan went right out the window. "Maybe her streets got a backup generator, if we find it and shut it down, and then we could break in," he suggested again. Shay nodded her head.

"There's only one way to find out."

 

~

 

Cassie pulled her Ford Explorer into a driveway of a rather large building. The house looked like it was very well cared for, flowers lined the driveway, that now were drowning in the downpour, all the windows located on the front side of the house that overlooked the driveway and the street beyond, were spotless and looked as if they had been cleaned recently, even during the storm that hung over their small town. Another vehicle sat in the driveway next to hers: a green Volkswagen Beatle Convertible with the top up to protect the interior from the rain; her father's Beatle. He felt the need to own a German car because he was from Germany, Cassie didn't quite understand that logic, but didn't really care either; she thought the Beatle was cute. She sat in her Explorer for a few minutes, watching the rain drizzle down the windshield, before she finally climbed out and ran toward the front door. A small overhang arched over the doorway, shielding her from the downpour.

Her father was an old man. He was dying. Cancer had spread throughout his body and he only had a few days left, and even then, he would be lucky to see a few days. He was also a rich man, who had been able to hire a full staff to watch and take care of him while he lay in bed and counted down the last remaining hours of his life. Cassie pressed a small red button next to the large double doors that lead into his estate, and waited for an answer. Shortly after buzzing in, a soft female voice came over the speaker. "Hello, who is it?" she asked.

"It's me, Cassie," Cassie answered.

"Oh, come right in Cassie," said the voice as a click was heard through the large doors, allowing her to open them and step into the house, out of the rain. The inside of Cassie's father's fortress of a mansion was very beautiful and filled with hundreds of paintings and old antique statues, that he had collected over the years of his life before he came down with lung cancer. The female who had answered the buzzer appeared atop the stairs in the main forum and slowly descended them until she stood in front of Cassie. She looked young, younger than Shay, around twenty. Her name was Brooke Doyle and was dressed in a typical maid uniform: black top, black bottoms, with spots of white here and there. She looked very cute. "Ah, Cassie, your father's been waiting for you" Brooke said. Her voice had a tint of seriousness in it, instantly giving Cassie the idea that something had happened to her father.

"What's wrong with Dad?" she asked quickly in response as she followed Brooke back up the stairs she had descended just a moment ago, so that she could see her father for whatever reason he wanted to speak with her. Brooke didn't give her an answer, making her believe it was worse than she had originally thought. "Brooke is something wrong with my father?" she asked again, still following behind the young woman toward her father's bedroom. Her father's room was blocked by two large oak doors; both were closed, giving her father a quiet room to rest in. When they finally stopped outside the doors, Brooke turned to Cassie and sighed lightly.

"Dr. Duran didn't show up for the examination, we never even got a call from him indicating he was on his way," Brooke finally said. Cassie stood there, staring at Brooke now.

Why hadn't Dr. Duran shown up? Why hadn't he even called? She thought to herself as she stood there, staring at the large doors erected in front of her, the gateway to her father's bedroom.  Then she suddenly thought of something: What if he had been abducted before he was able to call? Wasn't that a possibility? She'd like to think it was, she quickly began to believe that was what had happened, she didn't say anything to Brooke though, she was sure the young girl wouldn't believe her. Brooke finally, hesitated, and pushed open one of the large doors revealing a large bedroom. One entire wall of the room was windows, overlooking the fields and pastures he had planted in his backyard back when he was healthy enough to do it himself. Underneath the windows the walls were lined with bookshelves, which were crammed full with books that he had collected over his lifetime. Vast selections of novels, documentaries, old newspapers, historic medals that he had received from fighting in the way, statues, small picture frames that guarded pictures of all of his grandchildren, children, and other family members. On the other wall was a fire place, a large fireplace. The mantle was littered with more pictures, ones that he couldn't fit in or on the bookshelves on the opposite side of the room. On the centre of the mantle stood a cased picture of Cassie, it was a picture of her when she was eighteen, the day of her eighteenth birthday. Her father loved Cassie more than any of his other five children, she was the second oldest, but he took the most pride in everything she accomplished.

In the centre of the room, a bed was situated. The supports at each of the corners reached to the ceiling, and then supported a drape that hung over the bed. Lying on the bed was Cassie's father; an IV machine was hooked up to his arm, and a monitor sat next to the IV stand, showing a steady green line, with hills and mountains popping up with each beep that sounded. The monitor was hooked up to the old man's chest, monitoring his heart beat; it didn't look too healthy now that she stood closer to the bed. Brooke seemed to be the only person left in the house looking after the old man; she was his favourite after all. She did make the maid uniform she was wearing look like a hooker outfit, her body was amazing for a girl her age, and Cassie knew that her father was infatuated with the young girl, he had been ever since he hired her after Cassie's mother passed away. She also died of cancer, she had developed a tumour on her brain, too small to even really notice, and then it gave her a seizure fried her brain, killing her almost instantly, that was when the doctors had figured out that she had a tumour.

"Cassandra, is that you?" asked the old man as he slowly opened his eyes. His voice was weak, almost a whisper, so quiet Cassie had to sit next to her father and lean down to him so that she could make out exactly what he had said.

"Yes Daddy, it's me. How are you?" she asked.

"Not well sweetheart, I can feel death slowly creeping up on me.'

Cassie stared at her father, tears quickly gathering in the corner of her eyes. "Don't say that Daddy," she said with a shake of her head. Her neatly pony tailed hair came undone and fell over her face. "I don't want to lose you too."

"You have made me so proud, do you know that?"

"Yes Daddy, you tell me that every time I come visit you."

A small smile appeared on his face, but it disappeared as he coughed heavily. Brooke quickly appeared beside the bed with a napkin and wiped the old man's face, drool had drizzled down his cheek. "I don't want you to lose your way once I'm gone. You're going to be a successful woman and you're going to live an amazing life," he said after Brooke had finished cleaning his face.

Tears were still running down Cassie's face, her eyes had swelled with tears that she could no longer make out her father's loving face that looked up at her. She sniffled, but didn't say anything; she didn't know what to say. Brooke handed her a Kleenex to wipe the tears away. Blowing her nose with the Kleenex, she looked at her father again, he was smiling once again.

"You're the most amazing thing that's ever happened to me. The day your mother gave birth to you, I fell in love with you; I took all my free time and spent it on giving you everything you wanted, I spoiled your rotten."

"I know Daddy," she said as she sniffed again, tears still running down her face, distorting the image of her father again. "Even after I grew up and moved out, you went out of your way to give me anything I needed, and I can't thank you enough for what you did for me, I wish I could thank you, but there's no way I can, you've done too much for me," she added as she wiped the tears out of her eyes with the Kleenex again.

The old man kept the smile plastered on his face, even with Death standing behind Cassie, looking back at him, waiting for this 'Family Reunion' to end so he could get on with the rest of his business. "You can thank me, by living the rest of your life, by making me even prouder as I watch over you from Heaven," he responded with another heavy cough. The monitor next to his bed beeped loudly and a large mountain spiked up, and then a flat line was dragged across the screen, before another small hill appeared. Cassie had wrapped her hands around her father's hand; she was crying so much that her eyes had gone red. The old man didn't say anything more; he lay there, staring at Cassie for a long while, Brooke once again dabbed at the drool that had drizzled down his cheek. She took really good care of him.

"Daddy, please don't leave me alone," Cassie cried as she leaned her head onto her father's chest. She could hear his heart beating, slower and slower, and as she listened to her, her heart sped up, until the point where it pounded in her ears. The beeping on the monitor next to the bed slowly came to a stop, and was replaced with a flat hum; no more hills or mountains were being dragged across the screen, just a straight green line. Tears continued to flood out of Cassie's eyes, drenching the red and gold sheets that lay on top of her father's corpse.

Brooke rested a hand on Cassie's back and gently rubbed it. Tears had formed in her eyes as well. Even though she only worked for the man, he had treated her like she was another one of his daughters, and she would never forget how this was the only job she had ever had, where she actually didn't want to go home each night. Cassie quickly sat up and wrapped her arms around Brooke, crying onto her shoulder; Brooke wrapped her arms around Cassie in return and attempted to comfort her.

 

~

 

21 Knox St. was a old, dirty looking building. The large window that looked out onto the street was bared up and covered with thick black drapes that hung on the inside. Obviously this Alice didn't want anyone to know exactly what they sold. Red and blue neon 'Closed' light hung in the window as well.  Large golden lettering hung above the door, letting all visitors know that this was The Shadow Club. The bars on the window threw off their plan to break into the store, and the door didn't have a window on it, it was just a large steel door. Andrew and Shay sat in the red Hummer 3 that was parked across the street, the keys sat in the ignition, but the motor wasn't running, they sat in neutral, thinking of a way they could get into the store now.

"I hadn't expected them to bar the windows of this place," Andrew said as he sat in the driver's seat, staring out his window at the building across the street.

"Neither did I. I guess that rules out shutting off the power and breaking a window to get in, doesn't it?" she asked as she looked out the window at the store as well. The building looked weird through the rain splattered windshield, but she was still able to make out most of the outer features. A wave of thunder rolled across the dark shy overhead, shaking the Hummer slightly. The lightning seemed to have stopped too, the entire time they sat in the car, they hadn't seen one bolt fork its way across the sky, all they heard was thunder, maybe the storm was subsiding, finally.

Then, out of nowhere, a bolt forked its way towards the ground in front of the store, but instead of the metallic figure walking towards the Hummer, the lightning retreated to the sky, leaving the figure standing on the sidewalk. Another bold crashed next to the figure, and another figure was left standing on the sidewalk. The second one looked to be female, for its body was more rounded than that of the first figure. Neither of them noticed the Hummer parked across the street, and they both entered the store, walking through the door like it didn"t even exist. Andrew and Shay sat there, staring at the door to the store the two figures had just materialized through. They looked at each other, then back to the door.

Chapter 7

The Meeting

 

Brooke had unplugged the IV needle from the old man's arm, removed the sensors from his chest, and pulled the sheet over his head so they didn't have to look at him anymore, neither of them could bare to see him now that he had passed away. The monitor had been turned off so the humming that followed the flat green line that was being dragged across the screen, didn't echo through the room, only reminding them more of what had just happened. Cassie was in the bedroom she grew up in, her father had lived in this house most of his life, he raised his five children, including Cassie, in this house with his wife. Her bedroom wasn't as large as her father's; no room in the house other than maybe the main forum was as big as her father's room. She had a large bookcase set against one of the walls in her room, no books were on it anymore, she had taken them all with her when she moved out and found her own apartment. Instead, the bookshelf stood naked against the wall, nothing to occupy its shelves.

Her bed was almost as large as her father's; supports reached into the air and hung a cover over top of the bed, acting like an umbrella had there not been a ceiling to cover her from the sunlight, not that there was any sunlight on this dark, rainy morning. A large painting of a series of rolling green hills hung from the opposite wall; in between the two large windows that over looked the driveway. Cassie stood at one of the windows, staring down at the parked Explorer and Beatle in the driveway. The wind was carrying the rain in the opposite direction, leaving the window clean and easy to look through. Then a knock came to the large oak door that separated her bedroom from the hallway on the other side, it had to be Brooke, no one else was in the house with her. Cassie didn't say anything through; she just stood at the window, staring at the two vehicles parked in the driveway. Eventually Brooke just walked in.

"Cassie, your father had instructed me to give you this after he passed away," she said. She was holding an envelope, a large envelope, in her hand. There were no inscriptions on the envelope to let Cassie know what the contents might be, but she had a feeling she knew what it was.

"Thank you Brooke," Cassie said as she turned from the window and took the envelope from the girl. She stared at it for a few moments, dreading what it might be, but she knew it was probably her father's will.

Brooke smiled and continued to stand there, she was curious to find out if the old man had left anything for her; after all, she was his favourite maid. She watched Cassie open the envelope and pull out a large dark yellow tinted document. It had been folded up three times so that it would fit properly into the envelope.

"Dear Cassandra," Cassie read aloud, her father had known she would be the first person to read this, and had addressed it to her; a smile spread across her face slowly, but disappeared as she continued to read. "Because you're reading this, I'm sure you know that I've passed away, and I know you're very upset about this," she continued to read, tears once again gathering in the corner of her still bloodshot eyes. "Though you are more important to me, I have decided to list the few things that I have left for Brooke, to thank her for her wonderful work she did around the house, and for never questioning or ignoring me. For you, Brooke, I leave you my Beatle Convertible, as I know you don't have your own car yet and had to take a Taxi or Public Bus to get to work each day."

Brooke stood in front of Cassie, listening to her as she read aloud what was written on the document. "Really?" she asked, as if the old man's spirit was in the room still and he could reassure her that she would be receiving his car, there was no answer from a spirit, just Cassie continuing to read.

"The keys are hanging by the front door; take good care of her, like you took care of me while I was still in this world. Also, included in this envelope, is your final pay check, I hope you can accept my gratitude and use it wisely," Cassie looked into the envelope and pulled out a check, her eyes widened as she saw how much her father was giving the twenty year old maid he had fallen in love with. She handed it to Brooke, who shared the expression Cassie had on her face.

"Holy shit!" Brooke cried out as she looked at the number of zero's listed after the one on the check. She had been paid a million dollars; she didn't even know the old man had had that much money to spare.  She looked up to Cassie, who was smiling.

"You deserve it Brooke. You did a wonderful job around here, more than I could even do when I tried to help," Cassie said as her eyes focused onto the Will again and continued to read it.

"Thank you Brooke, your services were beyond those that I had expected anyone I had hired. Lastly, I leave you the Twilight Series you seemed so interested in when you weren't working."

Brooke's eyes widened again. She hadn't expected to be given a million dollars, the old man's Beatle, and the four book series Twilight by Stephenie Meyer.

"Cassandra, as I'm sure I've told you time and time again, every day you came to visit me, you were the best thing to ever happen to me, even better than surviving World War II (Two), and for you, I leave my estate, my house, and everything in it," Cassie read aloud, she looked around the room she was in, her bedroom, what in the world would she do with a mansion this big? She didn't even know what her father did before he had gotten sick; he never talked about it much. "Feel free to do whatever you please with my belongings, be it auction them off, put them into a museum, or just leave them where they are, they are yours now, do with them as you wish."

The rest of the document listed off the items and the amount of money that he was leaving his other three daughters and one son. They each received an equal amount of money, and the item they had most treasures of his while they were growing up. William, Cassie's only brother, third oldest to Cassie and Monica, who was the oldest of the five siblings, had received one hundred thousand dollars, along with the other children, the wedding rings from their parents. William was engaged, the only one of the five children to be engages, and he had been asking for his father's wedding rings so he could give them to his fiancée Florence.

Monica, the eldest of the five, had received a hundred thousand dollars along with the ten foot picture of her mother than hung in the dining room. Monica and her mother had been as close as Cassie and her father had been. In her mother's will, Monica had received almost as much as Cassie had received from her father's will.

Alyssa, fourth child of the family, a year younger than William, had received the same amount of money, and had also received the collection of dolls that their father had collected over his year. Alyssa, even though she was the second youngest, acted like she was the youngest. She had received their mother's collection of dolls as well when their mother passed away. She lived in a doll house in Los Angela's, and looked like a doll as well, being a model and all.

Lastly, Eve, the youngest of the five, received her father's vast collection of Encyclopedia's and Thesaurus's. Eve had just wrapped her hands around a Publishing deal with her first novel, and had always asked her father to borrow his books so she could make her own books more elaborate to her readers, and it worked. That was the end of the document.

"Cassie, are you going to be alright tonight?" Brooke asked, finally breaking the silenced that had consumed the room while Cassie read the rest of the document in her head.

Cassie looked up from the document and looked at Brooke and smiled. "I don't really know, I'm not alright right now," she answered as she folded the paper back up and slipped it back into the envelope from which it had come. "Why?" she asked.

"Well, if you'd like, I could stay the night with you here, or you could come to my place and stay the night with me," Brooke suggested. Cassie smiled in return, but had another idea.

 

~

 

The inside of The Shadow Club looked as old and dirty as it did on the outside. Shelves lined every wall, containing different ingredients for different rituals. Some held books; some held herbs, and some held weapons: daggers, swords, chains, whips; others held symbols, silver crosses and bullets, steaks, bags of garlic, anything anyone would need to deal with Vampire's or Werewolves. On the very far end of the store, sat a counter, black as black could be, almost camouflaging with the shadows that crept around the room with no source of light. On the counter were a cash register, a radio, and a copy of the latest 'People Magazine.' The two metallic figures stood in the centre of the room, looking at one another. Their bright white eyes giving off the only source of light for the shadow consumed store room. "Do you think they'll follow us into the store?" asked one of the metallic figures, its voice echoing like they were standing in a large metal cylinder. The second figure shrugged its shoulders.

"More than likely, she wants her daughter back," it said. The second figures voice was a lot lighter than the first; it was obviously a female of its race. She looked to the large steel door that acted as a gateway between their world and the storm wrecked town of Berlin Heights outside. "Though I doubt she'll be able to get through us to get to her precious little Kristi."

"Her precious little Kristi?" asked the first one, a hint of annoyance in his metallic voice.

"Sorry, your precious little Kristi," corrected the female, "how foolish of me to forget who she really belonged to."

The male grunted and turned away from the female to face the counter at the back of the store. "I'd be surprised if she even managed to get into the store. We've got it locked up tight," said the male as he leaned against the counter.

The female turned to him and a pair of large white fangs hung in the air under her pure white glowing eyes, she was grinning. "I wouldn't underestimate a mother's abilities," she said as she walked toward the male, "after all, look what I did to you," she added as she stood in front of him now. This time the male's white fangs appeared. She leaned down and placed her lips against his, "You mustn't forget that."

"Oh don't worry, I haven't forgotten anything," said the male as he ran his hands up the female's sides, he was now sitting on the counter. He pulled her onto his lap and kept his lips against hers. Despite being so close to being found out, they were making out as intimately as they had when they were before they had turned themselves into what they were now, Damien and Alice.

Outside, a wave of thunder crashed against everything in its path, shaking the ground slightly.

 

~

 

21 Knox St. wasn't too far from Cassie's father's house. Cassie had told Brooke everything about Shay and Andrew, and about their belief that an alien race was abducting people by using the lightning to conceal themselves from others. Brooke, surprisingly enough, believed every word of it. "You have no idea how much I love supernatural stuff like this," she said after Cassie had told her the whole story, "I don't actually practise anything like that, but I believe in the majority of it."

Cassie was glad to hear. "Okay, well Shay and Andrew are down at The Shadow Club, they're trying to dig up any information on what's going on, to see if they can stop it," Cassie said as she walked back and forth in her bedroom.

"And you want to go see if you can help?" Brooke asked.

"Yes, I just don't know where the hell that store is located."

"I do."

"You do?"

"Yeah, I always use to buy books from there, not books on rituals or anything like that, just novels about anything supernatural. It's 21 Knox St."

"That's not too far from here."

"Let's go then."

"Sure."

"I've just got to change my clothes, I'll meet you in the forum," Brooke said as she twirled around and disappeared into the hallway from once she had come. Cassie's father had given her one of his old children's rooms: Williams to be exact. She had brought most of her clothing over the week before so she wouldn't have to leave the old man alone in his dying days. All her clothing was neatly hung in the dresser that stood next to her bed. Striping out of her uniform, she stood nude in front of the open dresser, trying to decide what she wanted to wear. Pulling out a clean bra and underwear, she slipped those on first, and then pulled a white top over her head, and pulled a pair of black slacks up around her waist. Closing the dresser she headed downstairs to where Cassie was waiting. "Okay, I'm ready."

"Are you going to follow in my dad's, I mean your car, or do you want to ride with me?" Cassie asked.

"Yours, I haven't gotten my license yet," Brooke answered. Cassie nodded her head and opened the front door. Rain quickly poured through the open doorway and soaked the mat sitting on the inside of the threshold. Brooke cried out, she didn't want to get wet while wearing a white top, but she didn't have any other shirts, her uniform was one piece, and she sure as hell wasn't going to be caught wearing that outside of Cassie's father's house.

Cassie fished the keys out of her pocket and unlocked the car. "Ready?" she asked as she quickly bolted across the pavement and jumped into the driver's seat. Brooke followed quickly behind her. It was raining so heavily that with the short run from the front door to the Explorer, Brooke's top had gone completely transparent, showing off her breasts even more than the uniform she normally wore did. Cassie laughed a bit and Brooke blushed as red as Andrew's Hummer. They then quickly sped down the streets towards 21 Knox St. where they would hopefully meet up with Andrew and Shay.

 

~

 

The silence that had once filled The Shadow Club had now been replaced with deep moans of pleasure as the two figures continued to explore one another, but none of this sound made it outside to Andrew and Shay that were sitting in Andrew's Hummer, waiting for something to happen, nothing would happen, not until they somehow managed to get into the store. Alice and Damien kept themselves close to one another, their bodies connecting everywhere they could, their lips pressed against one another's, their hands scaling every location of the others body, sending shivers of pleasure running though their bodies.

 

~

 

Ten minutes had passed since the two metallic figures came down from the sky and entered the store, and Andrew and Shay were still sitting in the Hummer, waiting for any indication that the figures left, giving them an unnoticed entry into the store. Though neither of them believed that the two figures would leave, they obviously knew that they were waiting outside for an opportunity to get inside, maybe that was where they had been summed from, it was their hideout now. After a few more minutes, a motor could be heard in the distance; Andrew glanced from the door, to the rear view mirror and spotted a white Ford Explorer, he recognized it right away, it was Cassie's. The Explorer parked behind his Hummer and he spotted Cassie sitting in the driver's seat, and another girl sitting next to her, he didn't know who she was. Cassie flashed her lights, as if asking if they could sit in his car with them while they waited, for whatever it was they were waiting for, and he blinked his breaks to answer: Yes.

Cassie and the other girl climbed out of the Explorer and quickly occupied the back seats of Andrew's Hummer. "What are you guys doing here?' Andrew asked as he turned in his seat to look at Cassie and the other girl, whose shirt was soaked to the point where it was once again transparent. She didn't seem all that worried about it anymore, Andrew tried not to pay attention to it either, he kept his eyes on Cassie, but his mind wandered in the new girl's direction.

"I didn't have anything else to do," Cassie responded, not wanting to tell them about her father passing away, she wasn't ready to hurt again so soon. "And this is my friend Brooke Doyle," she introduced the other girl, who in turn smiled slightly, but it was more of a blush, now that Andrew had a reason to look at her.

"Oh," Andrew said as he held his hand out to the new girl. "Well I'm Andrew, and this is my friend Shay," he introduced both himself and Shay, who was sitting next to him, eyes still focused on the door of The Shadow Club.

"Nice to meet you," Brooke replied as she took his hand and shook it lightly, then quickly turning away from him, still somewhat embarrassed that he could see through her shirt. "I heard about what happened to you guys," she said, looking in the other direction, not able to meet Andrew's gaze.

"You did?"

"Yeah, I believe you guys, one hundred percent."

"You really believe this is the work of something other-worldly?"

Brooke nodded her head before finally meeting Andrew's eyes, which she was surprised weren't focused on her chest, but on her eyes, she blushed again, but kept the connection between their eyes. "Ever since I was a little girl, I was interested in anything of that sort: Aliens, Demons, Heaven and Hell, Angels and Demons," she said, general interest wouldn't be the word she normally would have used to describe her likes in the supernatural, she would have used a different word, but she couldn't place her finger on the word she wanted.

Andrew smiled, "Well that's good to hear."

"I also know a lot about this store," she added, not giving Andrew a chance to say anything, she continued with: "Every day after work I would get a ride down here to see if the latest volume of my favourite magazine or if there was a copy of this book I really wanted," she said as she looked out the window toward The Shadow Club now, "the guy who worked there seemed to know so much about what he was working with, and the girl he worked with, the two of them seemed more interested in it all than I was," she added.

Keeping her eyes on the building, Shay asked "Do you know what the guys name was?"

"Damien," she answered, "It fit him so perfectly too, he was a dark and mysterious looking guy."

Shay grunted, she hated hearing his name, even though she had asked a question she knew would give his name as an answer. "He was my fiance," Shay said as she turned to look at Brooke now.

"Seriously, you two were engaged?" Brooke asked with eyes wide opened. She seemed to know something Shay didn't know.

"Yes, that's all he ever talked about at home, all he ever seemed to care about, but, then one day he just went out of his mind and ran away," Shay answered, the story she had told Andrew earlier ran through her mind again, she didn't want to repeat it to Brooke.

"Are you sure it was the same guy?" Brooke asked, "I mean, he was all over the girl he worked with. I once walked into them making out in the bathroom," she added, and then shrunk back in her seat as Shay's face flushed.

"That fucking bastard!" Shay cried out as she pounded her fists against the dashboard of the Hummer. "So, all this time, he's been screwing some other bitch," she said as she continued to pound her fists onto the dashboard. She then bolted out of the car, across the street, and began to bang heavily on the steel door of the store.

Andrew, Brooke, and Cassie sat in the car, watching her wide eyed, but they quickly climbed out of the car as well and hurried across the street to join her. "What are you doing?" Andrew asked as he gripped Shay's shoulder, she yanked away from him and banged on the door again.

 

~

 

Damien pulled his lips from Alice's and his white fangs appeared again, grinning. "Looks like they're finally deciding to make their move," he said as he kissed Alice's neck before placing her on the ground and then getting off of the counter. The Shadow Club had once again gone deathly silent. Alice didn't seem as amused by this as Damien was; she just stood next to him, and sighed. She had enjoyed the sex they had just been interrupted from, more than she enjoyed what they were going to do with Shay and her new boyfriend Andrew.

"You bastards, let me in!" Shay screamed through the door at Damien and Alice, she was furious now. She didn't even know that the two metallic beings she was trying to rid the town of, was actually her fiance and his boss, who was now his wife. She was just determined to get her daughter back now. Damien kept the grin plastered on his face as he used some magnetic force to open the steel door that blocked Shay and her friends from entering the store, and as soon as the door opened, he and Alice disappeared in a flash of bright light, disorienting their visitors as they barged into the dark store room.

 

~

 

Shay, Andrew, Cassie, and Brooke fell into the store in a pile as they had all piled against the door to try and stop Shay from hurting herself by smashing herself against the steel door.  They looked around the dark room, the only light emitting from the door behind them, but it supplied light for only a limited amount of time before it slammed shut as randomly as it had opened, leaving them in complete darkness. As the four of them slowly picked themselves off the floor, they spotted four floating, glowing white eyes, hovering in the air directly in front of them. A hiss echoed through the silent room, making it even louder than it normally would have been had it been in any other area, a crackle, and a long metallic screech followed it, they were in the room with the aliens, and it didn't sound like they were too pleased with that.

Chapter 8

It Ends

 

The shadows hung densely over Andrew, Shay, Cassie, and Brooke as they stood just on the other side of the large steel doors that acted as a gateway to the storm outside. The four of them stared up at the four floating white eyes that seemed to emit their own source of light, rather than reflect light like normal eyes would have done. The metallic screech continued to echo throughout the small store room, bouncing off the shelves, off the contents of the shelves, as well as the ceiling and the floor, circling around the four of them endlessly.

The two sets of eyes slowly lowered to eye level, giving Andrew the feeling that whatever the eyes belonged to either bent over, or had lowered to their feet from their floating position, defying Gravity. In the distance a blue neon light appeared, giving only a soft illumination of the counter in which the object that emitted the light, rested on: It was the radio. The tuner raced across the small lit up screen and stopped between the number 145 and 146: Z-145 FM All Music Radio. An evil laugh came from the speakers as a song began to play: Inside the Fire by Disturbed. The loud heavy song blasted throughout the store room as the song started.

"Devin, won't go to heaven, She's just another lost soul, about to be mine again. Leave her, we will receive her, It is beyond your control will you ever meet again," sang the singer. The volume control turned up, louder, louder, until it was louder than the metallic screech that had once filled the silent store room. "Devin, one of eleven, Who had been rendered unwhole as a little child, She was taken, and then forsaken, you will remember it all let it fill your mind again," continued the song, getting louder and louder as it played on. Shay stood in the darkness, staring past the two sets of glowing white eyes at the blue neon light that was emitting from the radio tuner. The chorus began: "Devin lies beyond this portal, take the word of one immortal. Give your soul to me, for eternity; release your life, to begin another time with her. End your grief with me, there's another way, release your life and take your place inside the fire with her."

It seemed like the aliens, or whatever they were, was using the radio, the only station that seemed to work, to transmit a message to Shay, they had obviously known she would come for her daughter, and this song, was them telling her: The only way she's see her daughter again would be to give her life to them, so she could spend eternity with her daughter, but never see anyone else again, at least that's what she got out of it. The song continued: "Server, now and forever, you're just another lost soul about to be mine again. See her, you'll never free her, you must surrender it all if you'd like to meet again," and as that line emitted from the two small speakers of the radio, Kristi appeared in front of Shay, standing between the two sets of glowing white eyes, a small glow about her, making her the only visible thing in the room. Shay reached out to touch her daughter, but she was only an image, not physical, no substance. "Fire, for your desire, as she begins to turn cold for the final time, you will shiver, till you deliver, you will remember it all, let it fill your mind again."

The song continued to go on, singing the chorus again, but Shay was too busy focusing on the floating image of her daughter that stood directly in front of her, she wanted to hold her daughter again, kiss her, hug her, make everything all better for her, but the thought that she'd never hold her daughter again had taken over her mind and twisted her stomach into knots. The song's solo began to echo around the room, enveloping all four of them, then after a long rift, the singer shouted: "Take me away!" then the chorus played again, and finally repeating the second verse: "Devin, one of eleven, who had been rendered unwhole as a little child. She was taken, and then forsaken, you will remember it all; let it fill your mind again," and as the song came to a close, and the radio shut itself off, the evil laugh that had started the song echoed through the room again, sending shivers through Shay's body. Andrew had placed his hands on her shoulders in an attempt to calm her down, but it wasn't working too well.

"You bastards give back my daughter!" she shouted at the two sets of floating white eyes that stood on either side of the glowing image of her daughter. Her mind was swimming with thoughts, with memories of earlier that afternoon when she had been taken by these things right out of her own apartment; they wanted something with her daughter, but what was it?

"Mommy," cried the image of her daughter, apparently the image was connected with the physical body of Kristi, she could see, hear, and even talk with them from wherever she was being held hostage.

"Baby, I'm coming to get you, don't worry, I'll get you, and then we can go home and live happily together," Shay said as she reached for the image again, hoping to touch it. The image of Kristi raised a hand as well, in an attempt to connect with her mother, but it failed. She was just a hologram, an image, no substance, just light. The metallic screech echoed from the two things and then their bodies came into sight, illuminated by the floating image of Kristi that stood between them. "Give her back!" Shay shouted at them as they came into view.

Their metallic bodies glistened, reflected the light that came from Kristi's image and flooded around them, bringing Andrew, Cassie, and Brooke into view as well, they had been standing behind Shay the entire time, listening to the song, waiting for something to happen, and it finally was. Finally, the female spoke in English, her voice had a metallic hint to it, like she was a robot, no pitch, just monotone. "She is ours," said the female thing. Her eyes flickered and seemed to be looking at Shay now, digging into Shay's eyes, looking at her soul to see if it was worth taking as well.

Then the male spoke, his voice, though was metallic and monotone like the females, was strangely familiar to Shay, but she couldn't place where she had heard the voice from, he said: "You will never see her again," they were repeating single lines from the song that had just been blasted out of the tiny radio that now stood silent behind them on the counter. The image of Kristi began to fade into the shadows, taking the only source of light, aside from the thing's eyes, leaving them all in darkness again.

"What do you want from me?" Shay asked, begging now, she was desperate to hold her daughter in her arms again.

"You must give your soul to us, if you wish to see her again," answered the male, his voice still striking some resemblance in Shay"s mind, but still didn't ring any bells on whose voice it was.  They were still repeating lines from the song, in hopes that she would finally give in, and give herself up to them in order to see her daughter again.

Andrew still had his hands on Shay's shoulders, trying to keep her calm, she didn't seem to mind at all that he was trying, she appreciated his attempt to help, but it wouldn't work anymore than her begging was working on them. The two things seemed focused on Andrew and Shay, and paid no attention to Brooke and Cassie as they moved around the outside of the store, trying to get behind them so they could somehow hit them with something. Their bodies only looked metallic; they couldn't actually be made of metal, could they?

 

Kristi, however, had seen Brooke and Cassie make their move around the room; the whole room was visible for the nine year old girl that sat in a bright white room. She didn't know where she was though; she hadn't seen where they had placed her. The only thing she could remember was the metallic figure entering her room an hour or so after her mother had put her to bed, and next thing she knew she was in this bright room, alone, and had been alone for hours now, crying alone. She had heard the song that had played over the radio, and hoped to God that her mother didn't give up her life in order for them to be together again, she hoped to God that there was another way for them to be together again, but she couldn't think of anything, yet at least. As her image faded from the store room, the store room's image to her stayed as clear as it had ever been, giving her the feeling that she was actually standing in the room, but as a ghost, that couldn't touch anything, she just passed through everything like single particles did as they moved constantly around the Earth.

"Mommy," she said again, hoping her dying image was still audible to her mother in the store room; it was, because Shay responded quickly after.

"Just hold tight sweetheart, mommies going to save you," she said to the fading image of Kristi that was still standing in the store room, her voice came over to Kristi in the bright room as clearly as it would if Shay had been standing directly in front of Kristi. She began to cry again, she hated this place, wherever it was she was, she didn't like being alone.

 

"Why do you want my daughter so badly?" Shay asked, now focusing her attention on the two metallic beings that stood in front of her.

"Because," began the male, his voice was no longer monotone and metallic, and the voice quickly clicked in Shay's mind, she knew who it was: Damien. "She's my daughter too."

Andrew, Kristi, Cassie, and Brooke's eyes widened as the male said that, Kristi and Brooke also recognized the voice, Kristi began to cry even harder now, but Brooke stayed quiet as she was still hoping to get an attack off on their backsides. "You... you..." Shay managed to get out of her mouth, but that was it. Andrew's arms had wrapped around her now, his hands lay on her stomach, holding her against him, he didn't want to let her go now, now that everything came crashing against her. "What have you done?" Shay asked Damien.

"I didn't do anything," he began as his body began to glow again, he didn't look anything like Damien did, just his voice did, other than that, no one would have been able to guess who it was. "You did this to me, you wench," he said as he raised a hand to slap it across Shay's face, but was stopped by the female, who was shaking her head. He ripped his wrist out of her grasp and let his hand fall to his side again. "You just had to arrive as I was commencing that ritual; your clean, righteous soul affected the ritual, back firing it on me and Alice, turning us into these," he explained, pointing the blame back on Shay as he always did when things didn't go his way.

"How did she get affected by this?" Shay asked, general curiosity had been placed in her voice now.

The male grunted and then let out a sigh, "It had been nine years since me and you had sex, nine years since the two of us became one, like we did the day Kristi came into existence inside of you," he began to explain, so far, it didn't make any sense to Shay, but she stayed quiet, hearing him out, "and the day you came home to tell me you were pregnant, ruined my entire life. I didn't want to be a father; I hated the idea of being a father," he continued, his voice was angry, like it always was, except for when he was singing in the shower, 'you told me you were on the Pill, that you wouldn't get pregnant, that we didn't need to worry about any of that, but you lied, you wanted to have kids, you brought Kristi into this world and ruined my life," he ended, once again, pointing the blame on Shay.

"I wasn't lying, I really was on the Pill," Shay recoiled, tears filling her eyes again, why did he always have to make her the bad guy?

"There you go again, always with the lies," Damien said with a grunted as he kept his glowing white eyes on hers. It wasn't physically possible for him to believe he was the one at fault, he had never been blamed for anything. For his entire life, he had been told he was an angel, that he was the perfect son, and would make the perfect companion to whomever would have him, he had been told this for so long that his mind became unable to accept the possibility that maybe, for once, he wasn't so perfect, that he had done something wrong and that it was his fault he was the way he was now. "The day you came home from the Hospital with Kristi you began to treat me differently, you no longer treated me like a lover, you treated me like I was supposed to be a father to this girl," he said as he pointed to the image of Kristi that had came back into visibility, she was crying her eyes out, clawing at her face trying to rip her eyes out so she didn't have to cry anymore, trying to rip her ears off so she didn't have to hear her father say he never loved her, that she was just a waste of his time to ever think about. "A year after she was born, I started working here, if you'll recall correctly, I couldn't take the way you treated me anymore, I needed to get out of the house and find something else to occupy my time with, and if you also remember, that I hardly ever talked when I got home from work, I ate, and went straight to bed, even if it was only five or six in the evening. I didn't want to be awake to hear you talk to me like I was her father," he finished and took a breath.

Tears had swelled in Shay's eyes now and were slowly trickling down her face; her hands had laced themselves with Andrews that still rested on her stomach. "Did you ever love me?" Shay asked, sniffling slightly to hold back her emotions.

Damien shook his head, "No, not really. I just enjoyed your body, and after Kristi was born, you changed and I no longer could even look at you," he explained.

"Stop it!" Damien and Alice turned to look at the image of Kristi that floated between them. The girl was crying more than she had been before, her eyes swelled with her tears, she was kneeling now, her hands clawing at her legs in attempt to ease the emotional pain that surged through her body now. Damien shook his head and turned back to Shay.

"After I worked here for a year, Alice and I, got close, started seeing each other outside of work, which was why I started coming home later than normally, we got so into one another that we regularly committed acts of sex, more than once a day. Sometimes even right here in the public washroom of the store," he said. Brooke grunted, she had walked in on that once, wasn't the most pleasant thing she had ever seen. Shay was crying now, her eyes were closed, she couldn't believe what she was hearing, but she knew it was true none the less. "We became one with another, the way me and you became on that night nine year and nine months ago, and then, when you stepped into my ritual, because she had become the closest thing in my life, because her and I had submerged ourselves whole heartedly into the rituals of Satanism, that when the ritual back fired at me, she was effected by it too," he said, taking another breath. The image of Kristi displayed the girl clawing at her ears again, trying to stop herself from having to hear what Damien was saying.

Behind Damien, Alice, and the image of Kristi, Cassie and Brooke had found the shelf that housed the ceremonial weapons that The Shadow Club sold to their customers. Seeing as Brooke was knowledgeable with what the store sold, she was also able to quickly think of the only ritual any of these books talked about, that would effectively back fire and affect the casters closest friend or lover. However, she didn't believe that it failed because Shay had been present in the room. But as she listened to Damien talk, he quickly made it clear as to why Shay hadn't been affected by it: She had lived her life according to what she thought was good, she was nice to everyone she met; she was a forgiving girl; she treated everyone equally, so it seemed that God had given her a 'Get Out of Jail Free' ticket that day and had protected her and her daughter against the spell having any lasting effects on her and Kristi. God saw all children as innocent, had the world came to an end that very day, Kristi would have been given access to Heaven without a second thought. At nine years old, she wasn't old enough to make any decisions of that magnitude: To follow Christ or not, so she was instantly spared the effects of the spell.

"So you see, with your pure heart and soul, you blocked the ritual from completing properly, which caused it to back fire on me. After a month, I slowly began to notice changes in myself, my skin changed colours, my voice crackled and slowly turned into that metallic screech that we were making earlier, eventually we learned your language again and still had our voices," Damien continued to explain, still not sensing Brooke and Cassie approaching from behind with two ceremonial daggers, the same type of daggers that Damien had stabbed Shay with the day he left her.

"Eventually we turned into some mutant freakish demonic creature, and we had been out casted from Berlin Heights by Priests and other Christian fanatics who believed we were minions of Satan," Alice began to speak now, she was tired of waiting for her turn, so she cut into Damien's explanation and finished it for him. "After a few years we discovered that, along with the physical change in our bodies, we had gained some strange powers, for example, the immunity to heat and light, among others," she continued, "Damien seemed positive that it was your fault that we were turned into these creatures--"

"It was her fault."

"--and we ended up following a storm that was heading directly toward Berlin Heights, and turned it into the largest storm on record, so that he could get revenge on you--"

"And you didn't?"

"--and we slowly abducted everyone from town except for those that were close to you, keeping you guessing to what was happening around you, all so he could ruin your life like your ruined his," she finished, not paying any attention to Damien as he interrupted her. Damien grunted loudly and turned to face Alice, which in turn allowed him to finally set his eyes on Cassie and Brooke, who were right behind them now.

"Hey!" he shouted at the two girls, but wasn't able to stop them from digging the daggers that had been anointed with blood from one of the vials on a different shelf. Damien cried out in pain as the dagger cut through his metallic body, Brooke had guessed wrong, they had been made out of metal, yet they moved so agilely, the blood on the daggers was what allowed the blades to puncture their metallic bodies.

Alice screamed as Cassie pulled the dagger up her back, slicing a long, deep, thick line up her back, causing green liquid to pour out onto the floor beneath her. Brooke did the same to Damien's chest. Alice and Damien collapsed to the floor and lay in a puddle of their own green blood as they shrivelled up before melting into the puddle of green liquid, it was over, at least they thought it was.

 

Outside a wave of thunder crashed through the sky, breaking the silence that had filled The Shadow Club, shaking the ground, the building, sending books and vials off of shelves, smashing bottles as they collided with the floor, the weapons hanging clanged against one another, it was more of an earth quake than it was a wave of thunder. The room lit up with a fork of lightning flooding through the thick black drapes covering the only window in the room, the storm was getting furious now. The four of them quickly pulled back the drapes and looked out at the sky above; lightning was everywhere, flying in all directions, more thunder rolled across the sky, sending more items flying off the shelves until all the shelves were empty and their contents had been smashed and flown across the floor. A bolt of lightning crashed into the ground across the street, and as it departed back into the sky, a person was left standing in its wake. None of them knew who it was, but it wasn't one of the metallic creatures Damien and Alice had become, it was a citizen of Berlin Heights.

The man looked around; confused, startled, breathing heavily before realizing he was standing on Knox St. His face calmed down and he quickly ran for shelter against the rain that still fell heavily from the sky above. Shay quickly spun around to look at the image of her daughter, and was shocked to see that just a white blob hung in the air where the girl should have been, where had she gone? More and more people began to spawn on the sidewalks throughout the town, travelling in the lightning as they had done when they had gone missing; being placed in the exact spot they had been taken.

"Kristi!" Shay cried out as she swung open the large steel doors and ran across the street to Andrew's hummer that waited patiently for their return.

"Shay, where are you going?" Andrew asked as he ran after her.

"All people that had gone missing are returning, I want to be in Kristi's bedroom when she gets returned," Shay answered as she struggled to open the driver's door of the Hummer.

Looking around the street, more people began to appear on the sidewalks, sitting in parked cars, in windows of buildings, he understood what Shay was saying now. He clicked the unlock button on the keys from his pocket and climbed into his Hummer, Shay climbed into the passenger side. Cassie and Brooke had climbed into the Explorer parked behind the Hummer and followed quickly behind Andrew and Shay as they raced toward their apartments on Chapel Avenue.