Cross Council

  ~~~~~

  “Zigzig?” Aimee whispered as she stepped into the shadows.

  Waning sunlight cast a violet glow on the outskirts of the woods, so that the thick tree trunks looked like columns from an ancient Greek temple.

  “Zig?” She wasn’t sure why she was whispering but the woods just spooked her imagination into overdrive.

  Aimee cleared her throat. “Ziggy, dammit, come here!”

  She heard a muffled bark and sure enough it came from the gloomiest shadows in the forest. Aimee steeled herself, and with one last look back at the pond, she started after him. With a sigh of premature relief, she found Ziggy only a hundred yards in, but what struck her as odd was that he stood immobile, his long ears, which usually brushed the ground, now hovered a few inches in the air. His head and snout were held high and he held one front paw as if poised to take a step in the classic pointing pose. Aimee automatically found herself following Ziggy’s gaze up into the treetops.

  “What is it, Zig?” she whispered as her eyes struggled to focus on something, anything that would take some of the scary out of the situation.

  At first she saw nothing. The darkness was a void barely penetrated by the waning sunlight at her back. Yet, there was something. A light. A reflection. Something. A hum. Definitely a hum. Not the wind. Not a motor. It sounded like the oscillating fan in her bedroom window.

  Aimee squinted. She swore for a moment that they weren’t even trees overhead and that it was instead, the massive underbelly of a giant, dark gray vessel. A spaceship parked atop the forest, obliterating any sunlight that might have ventured there to dispel her fears. She rolled her eyes at herself for the notion. Space ships meant aliens. The notion was too far out there, even for her imagination.

  “Come on, Zig.” she muttered, kicking herself mentally. “Neither of us belongs here. We’re just spooked.” She forced a small laugh that sounded more like a choked gurgle than anything else.

  Ziggy cocked his head and emitted a low growl, baring his teeth. For a moment Aimee wasn’t sure whether Ziggy was going to go running deeper into the woods or just stand there barking like mad, but he surprised her. Ziggy, the traitor, took off back towards the pond like the neighbor's Rottweilers were chasing him.

  “Coward!” she yelled and grasped at a small dead branch to steady herself. She turned to follow her fearless friend. “You could at least wait for me.”

  At least she’d meant to turn. She’d meant to follow, but Aimee couldn’t move. If she’d done what she’d meant to do, she’d be walking nice and easy back around the pond, but she wasn’t.

  She thought for a moment that her muscles were locked in spasm from the two laps around the track during gym today, but her hands and arms were paralyzed as well and she couldn't even turn her head. She tried to clench her fingers into a fist and could feel perspiration bead on her forehead from the effort. But she was motionless with the exception of her eyes which were darting back in forth in wild panic.

  What the hell?! she tried to say.

  Even her lips were frozen, unable to speak those three words.

  Light fell down around her as if someone had switched on a spotlight from above. She tried to squint against the brightness, but even her eyelids were frozen in place now, unable to close or even blink. Instead, all Aimee could do was watch as the light grew brighter, bright enough that she could see through the hand wrapped around the twig in front of her. That freaked her out. Her hand was completely transparent and she could see right through it to the mottled leaves on the ground below.

  The hum intensified and she began to feel lightheaded.

  One lurch of her stomach and a prolonged silent scream later, she felt nothing at all.