Family
Holly felt helpless and alone. She was cold and stiff from standing still. The mist closing in was creepy. She peered down the rapidly disappearing track, wondering if she should follow everyone.
"I can't stay here," she mused out loud. "The tide will cut me off." She stepped onto the track.
Her toe kicked a small stone. It rolled before her, black, shiny and perfectly round.
Holly picked it up. It was a bead, a polished jet bead.
It is amazing, Ben thought, how much good stuff people throw out. He knew something most grown-ups didn't know: Junk plus Imagination equaled Great Inventions. The Great Invention he and Jack were working on at the moment was a catapult. Ben dragged an old shovel and a flat piece of wood out of the shed.
"Yeah!" Jack said. He grabbed a piece of wire. "Let's use this."
That's when he saw it. A shadow behind a car parked on the other side of the street. It disappeared, only to reappear through the window of the car ahead. The sight of it made him whimper, the sound catching in his throat as he took off again, running.
This time he didn't stop until he reached the walkway to his house. Home, he thought. Home safe. But with his next step his foot landed on an icy patch. His arms rose instinctively, whirling, struggling for balance. It did no good. The ground below him vanished, and he fell. Pain, red as a fireball, exploded behind his eyes. He yelped.
Behind him, the voice said, "Gotcha now."
