Page 5 of Missing Moon

Honestly, it wouldn’t have beenthatdifficult to bring the guy to the police. He and his associates did, after all, kidnap Shannon and drag her out here to the woods. Before anything paranormal came into play, that’s most definitely a crime. However, we run into a small problem where the associates involved in the kidnapping imploded into flesh blobs, which then mutated into demons. Call me pessimistic if you want, but most cops aren’t going to believe a story like that. They might start thinking Shannon snuck off with some people to do drugs and had a bad trip.

“What the hell am I going to tell my parents?” blurts Shannon.

I think for a moment. “Tell them the truth… just notallof it.” I smile. “You were kidnapped but managed to escape. Be honest about everything… except for the part where they turned into demons and three people came out of nowhere at the last possible moment.” With that, I reach inside her mind and scrub her memory clean of all things demons. That should hold for quite a long time.

I turn to my kids. “She won’t remember any of the demon stuff… or us if we get out of her sight soon.”

“Is she going to remember seeing the man ride the express elevator to hell?” Tammy glances at her brother, seeming a little impressed—and a little unsettled.

I chuckle. “Nope. Removed!”

“Okay. Let’s make this more believable.” I take Shannon’s hand, then reach out toward Anthony.

He grasps my hand, then takes Tammy’s.

I call the dancing flame… and step us through the portal to the edge of the wooded area where we found her—close to a small commercial area with a gas station and a McDonalds. We leave Shannon sitting on the ground and back off, getting out of sight but close enough to keep an eye on her and make sure she gets to safety.

A few minutes later, she snaps out of the haze I left her in. She looks around at the woods in a daze for a few seconds, then seems to ‘remember’ she’s running away from bad people and jumps to her feet and spins around. Poor kid looks scared, but not terrified. A sense of mild confusion comes over her next. My guess is she’s trying to make sense of thinking she’s running for her life but also somehow confident she’s no longer in any danger.

Shannon notices the brightly lit gas station at last and makes a run for it.

We move closer, staying out of sight and watching as she runs into the gas station convenience store and begins frantically talking to the clerk. Within a few minutes, the police arrive. Once I’m sure they’ve made contact with her and she’ll be fine, I offer my hands out to my kids.

“Ready to go home?”

“Yeah,” says Tammy.

“No shrinking this time.” Anthony chuckles.

I hold back a laugh. “Don’t need that, since I know exactly where we’re going.”

With that, I close my eyes and concentrate on the dancing flame, picturing our living room at home.

Chapter Two

Inevitable

A little over a week after we stopped a pack of crazy people from killing Shannon, I wake up basking in a sense of... imminent dread.

What the heck?

This whole psychic thing would be a lot easier to deal with if whatever caused humanity as a whole to discard belief in magic and so forth centuries ago never happened. Imagine if I could just go to the internet and look up psychic phenomena and get real answers instead of ads for tarot card readers or scam hotlines?

Then again, if magic and the supernatural had remained a common facet of life…wouldthere even be an internet? Maybe people would all have giant crystal balls in their living rooms instead of televisions.

Meanwhile... something is wrong, and I don’t know what.

Yeah, obviously, there is a lot wrong all over the place. But... if some random person I’ve never met is going to be hit by a car in a few hours, I wouldn’t feel it coming. So, a lot of bad things happen completely outside my awareness. It sounds kinda bad to say, but I’m glad. Getting a feeling abouteverybad thing happening to anyone all over the world would drive me insane.

So, yeah. Me feeling a sense of dread means something bad is going to directly affect me or someone I love.

I jump out of bed and check on the kids. I’m awake really early. It’s barely past five in the morning. Still dark out… I think.

Paxton’s curled up amid her sea of stuffed animals. Tammy is sleeping in her bed, which has a significantly lower quantity of stuffed animals… as in none. Anthony is awake at his computer. He looks over when I poke my head in.

“Morning, Ma.”

“Morning.”

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