Ian stared up at the sky, watching the cloudless blue above him. The trees rustled noisily over head, the leaves brilliant in their autumn coloring. The lake lay quiet with the absence of boats, looking almost smooth enough to walk on. All was as he'd known it since the first summer he'd come here. Yet something felt strange, perhaps it was the lazy way in which the afternoon sun trickled it's way past the birch branches. He half wondered why anything felt different, it all looked the same. But it was almost too idyllic to be real.

His father watched the end of his fishing line, every once and a while reaching over to scratch Kiki's head. Kiki was a border terrier, and the type of dog Ian's father would have made fun of for being a “girl's dog”, simply because of it's size. However, after Ian's mother had bought the dog, his father had been the one to grow the most attached to it.

Ian sat on a blanket in the grass beside his mother. It was surprisingly warm out for autumn, so she still wore one of her sun dresses. He plucked restlessly at the grass, feeling like something wasn't right but trying to ignore the sensation anyway. Had he been older, he might have thought the day was too good to be true. But at this time in his life, when most children believe there can never be too much of a good thing, such a thought seemed ludicrous.

Examining his father's fishing line, Ian wished he had his own pole with him. Not because he was bored, but to just get his mind off things. In fact if he didn't have all these strange feelings, he might have felt quiet content to just stare out into the lake and daydream. He sighed with irritation and tried to throw an errant blade of grass into the lake. It caught flimsily on a breeze and spiraled back in his direction.

His mother lightly tapped his shoulder, "You look bored of this. Here, let me show you something."

He looked back at her as she pushed herself off the blankets, smoothing out her yellow and teal skirt as she stood. Smiling, she motioned for him to follow as she started out towards the path. Ian glanced back at his father, but he hadn't looked up at the sound of his wife's feet kicking up leaves as she walked off.

The boy leaned forward and patted Kiki's back, "Good girl."

Sorry son, Kiki's dead...

Ian shook off the memory of his father's voice. A vague thought surfaced in his head, something about his eleventh birthday and how sad he was when Kiki had died. Ian disregarded the thought, it didn't make much sense anyway. After all, he was only eight and Kiki was obviously still alive. It was silly to remember things that hadn't happened. Ian wrote it off as just another part of the odd feelings that had been afflicting him.

Saying a quick goodbye to his father, he rushed after his mother without waiting for a reply. He was thankful for the distraction, if he'd sat there any longer his feelings of dis-ease would have started to scare him. He didn't like feeling this way when there wasn't any reason for it.

He walked with his mother in silence. Along the way, Ian watched the trees and sky, wondering what it was that felt so different. Sometimes he thought he could turn around and find someone watching him, but every time he looked there was nothing. There was a certain stillness in the surrounding woods, almost a cleanness that nature shouldn't have.

His mother happily swung her arms at her sides. Ian was glad to see her happy, maybe what he felt couldn't be all that bad if she was this relaxed. Perhaps he was just being childish? He hadn't noticed that his shoulders had been hunched up, until he saw how upbeat his mother looked. Suddenly self conscious, he forced himself slack. He would not let any of this get to him, he was not a baby anymore. To him, this seemed almost as silly as being afraid of the dark.

Ridiculing his emotions down, he tried to focus on something else, "So, where are we going?"

"It's a surprise, something you've never seen before."

He rolled his eyes in exaggeration, trying to seem mature by not falling for his mother's theatrical mysteriousness. He secretly liked how much this felt like an adventure. Wandering into the woods, searching for hidden treasures. He started to smile as well, ignoring the wrongness he couldn't identify.

Suddenly, his mother cut off the path, diving into the bushes. Ian waited half a second before following, a little startled by the change of pace. She carefully held back overextended branches, making sure they wouldn't fling back and hit him. He stayed close to the flower patterned back of her dress, not sure which direction she might move in next. Every once and a while an errant thorn would snag on his t-shirt.

As abruptly as their trek into the bushes started, it ended. They made their way into a clearing; at first Ian thought it was a gravel road but the rocks were too big and uneven. He got a better look and saw the rotted wood and rusted iron of an abandoned railroad track. Thick bushes closely bordered the narrow path on both sides.

"I never knew this was here. How did you know to find it?"

She kept smiling, "Let's keep going."

Ian had difficulty keeping stride with his mother on the gravel; it kept shifting under his tennis shoes and throwing off his footing. He moved to the tracks themselves and took long leaping strides from each plank of wood. Occasionally, the wood strained under his foot from it's age, but it never outright collapsed.

The tracks seemed to wind off into the woods forever. He was excited for what they might discover next. But the wrongness kept tugging at the back of his mind. He was unusually warm, the kind of warmth you get from being wrapped in blankets for too long. He shoved that thought away. So what if he was warm? It wasn't uncomfortable. It was just a warmer day than usual.

Soon the clearing widened, the gravel fading out around the edges into a sparse meadow. The lake could be viewed from where he was, large spaces of blue interrupted by the trunks of trees. Ian thought he spotted a lone boat out on the lake, but his mother's voice drew him to the real focus of the clearing.

"Well, here it is."

The train tracks kept going on, but they lead into a tunnel. Ian wondered how such a huge slab of concrete could be hidden away in the forest, but he supposed that was part of the intrigue in coming here. Random graffiti marked the mouth of the tunnel, most of it was completely illegible to him. But the most striking feature of the clearing was a tiny shambled shack placed just inside the tunnel, sitting haphazardly across the tracks.

His mother was already standing at the tunnel's mouth, he made a short sprint after her, "Why would anyone build a house here?"

Peering into the shadowed mouth he could tell that the structure had been there for a very long time. It was lopsided and looked like one powerful shove would knock it over. Despite this, Ian was still creeped out. All abandoned buildings tended to do that to him. They made him think of the places monsters and serial killers would hide in horror movies.

Stepping into the shadows his mother said, "I've always wondered what was inside."

Ian stayed at the tunnel's edge, thoughts of ghosts and bogeymen tried drifting into his head. He wanted to convince himself that stuff like that didn't happen in real life. There were no such things as monsters. But why did everything feel so different, so wrong?

Turning his head wildly about, he tried to look for something, anything, to tell him what was wrong. He listened to the sound of his mother's feet on the gravel as she inspected the shack. The wind still shuffled dry leaves together. Ian held his hand out but could only feel the warm still air, yet the breeze was constant in the trees. In fact the lake was more calm than usual; not a ripple marred it's surface.

Maybe the wind was some natural effect? Maybe there was some unseen wind block somewhere? After all, what did he know about this kind of thing? Ian listened a little harder, occasionally looking over his shoulder. A faint tune drifted softly towards his ears, it tickled at the back of his memory. Music? Someone must have been blaring their radio somewhere across the lake. He listened a little longer, trying to place the cheery tune.

Sorry Ian, you're too small to for this ride...

Carnival music? That didn't make sense, they were too far away to hear anything like that. It wasn't like they were deep in the wilderness, but the closest signs of civilizations were a couple of small towns. But no matter how hard he listened he could still hear it. He couldn't have been imagining it.

"Mom, do you hear that?"

"Hear what?", his mother answered with a distracted voice. She was getting on her tiptoes to peer into one of the tiny windows, careful not to use her hands to touch the splintered wood.

"Mom, can we leave? I... I feel weird."

"Hold on a second, I think I see something."

Ian looked back at his mother, he saw the quick shift of movement in the gaping doorway of the shack before she did. Ian gave out a strangled cry as a dark shape darted out of the shack, and with one quick motion, snatched his mother by the hair.

The thing looked like a jagged shadow in a vague, too thin human shape. The skin was black and glossy like oil. The edges of it's form undulated and pulsed. The eyes were just simple slashes of white light. With sharp fingers it tugged his mother closer, opening it's mouth wide enough to swallow her head whole. The mouth was lined with sharp teeth the same red-brown of the rusted railroad tracks.

Ian shrieked and stumbled backwards, tears suddenly welling in his eyes. His mother's image flickered and was gone, like a television screen loosing it's reception. The creature's rusted iron teeth snapped shut on nothing. Suddenly, the atmosphere changed in a way Ian hadn't thought was different. Everything seemed brighter and clearer, almost like it was somehow more real. It had been like he was looking through gauze this whole time and hadn't even noticed. He was faintly aware of scrapes on the bottom of his hands from landing heavily on the gravel.

The creature moved towards Ian but stopped at the entrance of the tunnel. It's railroad spike teeth grinned at Ian and it beckoned for him to come closer. Ian rubbed vainly at the tears on his face and shook his head as if to deny the existence of the thing. He was also vaguely aware that he could now see the top of a ferris wheel somewhere beyond the tunnel. Ian knew that hadn't been there before.

Rising from the gravel, he intended to make a mad dash for his father, instead he started walking towards the tunnel. Shocked, he tried to stop himself from heading straight for the creature. He let out a desperate cry in his attempt to run away, but his steps still lead to the thing ahead of him.

Ian screamed again, trying to throw himself on the ground. His feet still dragged forward, leaving parallel marks in the gravel. He cried more, and yelled for his father, knowing that would do no good. The thing's oily outstretched hands were inches away from his face, it's mouth opening wider with each step closer that Ian took.

He scrunched his eyes closed and panted, "No...no...no."

Hands landed firmly on his shoulders, at first he didn't realize that he wasn't moving forward anymore, and the hands weren't the creatures; they were coming from behind him. He cracked his eyes and that grinning face was inches from his own. It was snapping it's railroad spike teeth at him, flexing it's fingers as if trying to breach those few extra inches. The rim of the tunnel was almost directly above him, he had just barely made it.

He quickly backed up into the person who had saved him. Ian half expected to see his father, and almost ran at who he saw instead. The man was freakishly tall and slender with long spindly limbs covered in a white jumpsuit that almost seemed regal despite being such a ridiculous article of clothing. His head was a large hairless oval with small features and huge black eyes. The skin was a soft pale gray. To Ian, he looked like those drawings of aliens on the covers of science fiction novels.

The only thing that stopped the boy from running was it's firm but gentle grasp on his shoulders. It's voice was soft as he spoke, "You've done quite enough running around for one night."

"But... my mother?"

He laughed, "Don't worry, she was never really here. You were the only one in any real danger."

With the same gentle firmness, he led Ian in the direction of the lake. Out past the trees and in the center of the lake he could make out an island that appeared to be covered in a giant crystalline net-shaped dome. He looked back at the tunnel but the creature was gone, Ian though he could see a faint slithering in the shack's doorway. He shivered and directed his gaze back towards the island.

Hesitantly, Ian asked, "Where are we going?"

The strangely delicate face of the man smiled down at him, "You are going back to bed, where you belong."