"Well, I," George cut her off by kissing her cheek. Mom blushed and scurried to her chair.
"Actually, this isn’t about the wedding."
No more smiles.
"Last night, when I came home…I don’t know…maybe I’ve got an imagination…"
"What is it, dear?"
"So what was it you imagined?"
"Look, no laughing, okay? When I got home last night, I saw something moving out in the woods across from the front porch. I don’t know what it was, but it was huge. I mean, really friggin’ big."
"So how ‘friggin’ big’ was it?" George took the obvious line but failed to lighten his son’s mood.
"Dad, I mean, you know I’ve been out there and seen bear and deer and everything else, right?"
"Richard Stone," his dad forced the issue. "Tell me what you saw."
The young man swallowed hard.
"I don’t know what it was. I didn’t see all of it. But it was gigantic, like bigger than an elephant or something. Bigger than the house. But I could only see its side-it was like a big black wall of something moving."
They did not respond.
Richard conceded, "Maybe it was a bear."
His father tapped the newspaper. "There’s a lot of strange things going on right now, and some of it is getting close to home."
"The dogs," Kelly Stone stared at her cream cheese-covered bagel as if hesitant to confess a sin. "I let them out the back door this morning but as soon as they were outside they ran around the front. So I walked to the living room to see. I figured maybe someone was out there. They ran straight across the lot and over to the woods. Right where you would’ve been looking, I’ll bet."
George Stone leaned in his chair and twisted his facial expressions back and forth as if in deep thought.
Rich begged for information, "So? So what the hell is going on?" They were, of course, his parents and no matter how old he would ever get they would know the answers to these types of questions… right?
Mom silently bit into her cream cheese bagel. Dad scratched his curly brown hair.
– Dante Jones drank the last gulp of beer from a frosted mug.
"Are you going to have another?" Rich, who had emptied his own mug a minute before, asked.
Dante did not answer immediately. His attention lay with the big screen TV behind the horseshoe shaped bar. Geraldo Rivera reported from somewhere in the Middle East, but that is not what held Dante’s eyes. He followed the constant crawl of headlines as they rolled endlessly along the bottom of the screen.
…PRESIDENT TO ADDRESS NATION AT 4 PM EST…MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL SUSPENDS ALL GAMES UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE…FAMILY MEMBERS OF CUBS FANS SWARM WRIGLEY FIELD…
"Yeah," Dante finally answered, embracing the idea of another beer. "Damn straight, man."
"What is this? Is this the end of the world?"
Dante said, "No. Might be the beginning of the end."
"Whaddya mean?"
Rich knew Dante had a flare for the dramatic. Just as important, when it came to their relationship Dante was the one in charge, the one with the answers. Good friends, sure, but Dante played the lead role of Starsky, or Crockett, or Ponch. Rich had to be content as Hutch, Tubbs, or John.
"If this was the end, it’d be over by now. This might be the start, though, you know? Like, before long, we’ll see where this is going."
…WITNESSES AT DISNEY WORLD CLAIM PARK ATTENDANT WAS ATTACKED BY A TEN-FOOT TALL 'DINOSAUR CREATURE'…ORLANDO AUTHORITIES DISMISS EYE WITNESS ACCOUNTS AS HYSTERIA AND SUGGEST AN ALLIGATOR WAS RESPONSIBLE…
Dante waved to the bar waitress who approached the table with her head slung low and hints of water in her eyes. Everyone in the restaurant and on the streets shared her solemn disposition, a disposition deepening with each new story of a mass disappearance or strange sighting. Twenty-four hours prior, those stories were oddities but they now rolled in from the media with increasing frequency.
Dante asked her, "Hey, you okay?"
She sniffled, nodded, and guessed they wanted, "Two more?"
"Yeah…please," Richard dared answer for them both.
"And keep them coming," Dante added.
She walked away between rows of crowded tables, her head still low.
…BRITISH GOVERNMENT DENIES THAT SECURITY AT BUCKINGHAM PALACE WAS BREACHED BY A ‘MONSTER’ LAST NIGHT AS REPORTED BY A MEMBER OF THE PALACE’S SERVICE STAFF… NATIONAL CONSTITUTION MUSEUM IN PHILADELPHIA REMAINS CLOSED AFTER INCIDENT YESTERDAY INVOLVING A WILD ‘ANIMAL’ THAT KILLED SEVERAL PEOPLE INCLUDING TWO POLICE OFFICERS…
Richard pondered, "First the disappearances, now people seeing things."
"People? You mean people like you?"
"I guess so."
"Watch your back. When things start going bad, it’s not just the weird stuff you got to worry about, you know?"
Rich did not know.
Dante explained, "Other people, man. Did you ever stop to think about what would happen if there weren’t any cops on the streets? What happens when people start turning on their televisions and get nothing but static? You think it’s bad when we’re getting all the news? Think about what’s going to happen when people don’t get any of it; when all they get is dead air."
"You think it’s going to come to that?"
"Man, I’ll tell you what I would do if I were you," Dante leaned forward. "I’d go and get your honey and find somewhere to lay low for a couple of days to see where all this is heading."
Richard shook his head.
"I can’t do that. I’ve got work tomorrow. I’ve got things I got to do."
"Work? Are you kidding me? Work? The world is falling apart and you’re going to sell cars?"
"Dante, it’s my job. Are you walking away from your job? What if all this blows over?"
Jones threw his hands up in exasperation.
"Have you been watching the news?"
…SECRETARY OF STATE URGES AMERICANS TO CANCEL OVERSEAS TRAVEL PLANS UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE…NYSE HALTS TRADING AFTER RECORD DROP IN THE SIX MINUTES FOLLOWING THE REPORTED MASS DISAPPEARANCE AT WRIGLEY FIELD…
"I hear it. I’m scared. But I’ve got a wedding coming up."
"Man, you better start changing the way you think," Dante warned.
Rich said, "I’m trying to deal with reality here. And the reality is that I’ve got responsibilities and bills."
Dante grinned and shook his head in a familiar manner; a manner suggesting he heard words so moronic he could only laugh.
"I think we’re about to find out that our cars and our big cities and our complicated tax code and must-see TV is all a fantasy. I think reality is coming right at us. I don’t think we’re going to like it."
– Ashley paced from one end of the porch to the other, weaving between the wicker chair and glider. She barely noticed Dick’s Malibu as it stopped in front of the house.
Rich jogged to the stairs then hopped on to the porch in two bounds. Ashley paced over to him, threw her arms around her future husband and buried her head into his chest.
"Tell me it’s going to be okay."
Rich’s mouth opened and wavered.
A late afternoon breeze punctuated his silence, blowing lazily across the porch. Sounds rode the wind: horns and rumbling traffic, music from car stereos and shouts across playgrounds. All those sounds had traveled far to find their ears. Ashley’s neighborhood seemed an isolated enclave separate from the rest of the world. Rich imagined the porch a theater and those distant noises playing on a back stage phonograph.
She pleaded, "Tell me this is all one big bad dream and that everything will be all right and the wedding will go on like we planned."
Rich shook away thoughts of theaters and phony soundtracks to focus on reality. Yes, reality, no matter what Dante said. He pulled her away from his chest to search her eyes. He found more red than green.