It was simply there on one humid morning about six weeks ago.

I walked out of my house, looked right on the way to my car, and there it was.

A black square in the middle of the street.

I thought it was a strange box or something.

Thinking nothing of it, I went off to get lunch.

But it was still there when I returned.

And this time the neighborhood kids that usually collectively played in the yard to my house's left were now instead off to the right, circled around the black square.

They were talking, laughing, and poking it with sticks.

Something didn't seem right about the scene, so I got out of my car and stood for a moment watching.

What was wrong here?

It hit me.

They weren't poking at it.

They were poking into it. One of the local teenagers was sitting on the porch behind me,

so I knew the kids were being looked after. If it was some strange prank or something,

well, I'd hear about it later. I headed back inside and returned to writing the day's story.

Around eight in the evening, someone began knocking on our front door. Two of

my roommates were in their rooms with their doors open, but we were all playing an online game

together, so we ignored it and hoped that the guy in the room downstairs would get it. He either

didn't hear it or didn't care, so we sat there listening to the pounding and knocking for about 15

minutes before one of my roommates logged off the game and stormed downstairs to the door. I heard,

What the hell do you want? None of us are parked in your goddamn spot. We never park in your

spot. That didn't sound good. I left my computer and slid down the hallway to see what was going on.

...