Every town has a legend, ours is an empty school house at the top of hill.  The legend goes back more than a hundred years.  Every twelve years, on Halloween,  the house takes a single child from town and does not let them go.   Early in the day, or late at night,  a child wanders in and is never seen from again.  For as long as anyone can remember.   

Some people say the house was burned down after the War, but magically rebuilt itself in the last few weeks of October,  11 years and 11 months after the fire.  Maybe that part never happened.  There aren't any photos of a fire, or the new/old house.  There have never been any photos,  no vidoes, nothing.  Despite numerous attempts to record what happened,  nothing is ever saved.  No evidence can be had.   It happens, and it does not stop happening. 

In 2006 my sister went inside the house,  looking for her daughter.   The girl ran out a back door (she…

The skinny dress was a mid-calf lycra sheath with completely useless spaghetti straps, black with blue stretch gauze over it. On the hanger it looked like it wouldn't fit a ten year old. I bought it at the plaza one lunchtime before IT class. My IT teacher, Michael was the stereotypical nineties geek: introverted, shy, certainly not equipped to deal with a sixteen year old girl drunk on the joy of her own attractiveness. I did more or less whatever I…

PROLOGUE

Potentially the most important event in human history unfolded that day with lightning speed. Ironic given what followed, or more correctly, what didn’t.

Every nation on earth possessed of the technology to keep track of satellite traffic had picked up the arrival within minutes, if not seconds. It was literally too big to miss. You can see the International Space Station with your naked eye when it passes overhead just after…