I was sitting at my desk, facing the window in my upstairs office, when I saw a group of

people walk by on the dirt road at the end of my short gravel driveway.

All four members of the Danver family from down the street were there.

I also recognized Sherida and Saul from the house at the end of our cul-de-sac. There were five other people whose

names I didn't know. I had only been living in the neighborhood for a few months. I had moved here

because it was tucked away in the woods, a good 20 miles from Colorado Springs. The houses, each built on lots an acre or larger, sat under pine

trees whose tips swayed together in the breeze. It was a quiet neighborhood, which

was exactly what I wanted. And the months leading up to these strange occurrences were uneventful.

I got plenty of work done in my home office, overlooking my front yard and driveway.

But the feeling that impelled itself on me as I watched that group pass by was not a good one.

The man leading them, a man I'd never seen around

the neighborhood, wasn't special by any means. He wore brown slacks and a short-sleeve button-up

shirt of a slightly larger shade of brown. He walked casually, but with purpose, and he walked ahead

of everyone else in the group, the members of which stared at the back of his head with

rapt attention, as if expecting his head to twist impossibly around and look at them. I watched

them with growing curiosity until they were lost

to sight, hidden behind the trees that populated my yard. It was late in the afternoon, and I'd

been having difficulty focusing on my writing, so I worked at my desk for several more hours to

make up for lost time.

I kept expecting the members of the group to come back down the road at some point,

perhaps altogether or in little clumps, but they never did.

The late summer sun set.

...