The stranger shot an impatient glower through the driver’s window. “I took you for a man of reasonable intelligence, Robert. Must I explain the danger of staying here?”
Robert once again eyed the fuel truck at the base of the bridge, now six feet from collision. Suddenly he understood why the smoke rippled slightly, why the hovering bits of metal sporadically twinkled. The clock hadn’t stopped, just slowed. Their fate was still coming at the speed of a sunset.
Robert pushed his door open. “What’s happening? How—”
“We’re not here to educate,” snarled the female of the trio, through the same odd inflections as her companion. “We came to save your pretty rose and songbird. Would you rather see them perish?”
“Of course not! But—”
“Then gather your daughters and come. Bring the cow if you must.”
While Melanie and Robert scrambled outside, the white-haired man kept his sharp blue gaze on Hannah. She’d never seen anyone more beautiful or frightening in her life. He was a Siberian tiger on hind legs, a snowstorm in a suit.
Robert opened the side hatch and pulled her into his quivering arms. “Come on, hon.”
“I don’t like it here.”
“I know.”
“It’s cold in the bubble and I want to go home.”
Robert didn’t know what she meant by “bubble.” He didn’t care. He clutched her against his chest, just as Amanda climbed out the door and wrapped herself around Melanie.
“Mom . . .”
Thick tears warmed Melanie’s cheeks. “Stay with me, sweetie. Don’t let go.”
Soon the family stood gathered outside the minivan. Robert held his wary gaze on the strangers. “Can you please tell me what—”
They ignored him and split up. The man in the baseball cap turned around and moved a few yards ahead. The woman took a shepherding flank behind the Givens. The white-haired man stayed in place, bouncing his harsh blue stare between Robert and Melanie.
“We walk now,” he said. “Tread carefully and stay within the field. If even a finger escapes, you won’t enjoy the consequences.”
They began traveling. Robert noticed that everything within thirty feet of them existed at normal speed and color, a pocket of sanity in the sluggish blue yonder. The field seemed to move at the whim of the man in the Yankees cap. He walked with strain, fingers extended, as if pushing an invisible boulder.
Battling his panic, Robert retreated into his head and imagined the analytical discussion he and Amanda might have in a calmer state of mind.
“Daddy, what did he mean about the finger and the field?”
“Not sure, hon. I’m guessing it’s not healthy for a body to move at two different speeds.”
“Did they slow down the world or did they speed us up?”
“Good question. I don’t know. In either case, I figure we’re just a blur to the people in the other cars.”
“How is this happening?”
“I don’t know, sweetie. It’s entirely possible that I’ve lost my mind.”
He looked up and saw exactly where the drizzling rain stopped, a perfect dome that extended all around them. A bubble.
Suddenly his inner Amanda posed a dark new stumper.
“Daddy, how did Hannah know the shape of the field?”
Robert’s heart pounded with new dread, enough for Hannah to feel it through his blazer. She wrapped her shivering arms around his neck and buried her face in his shoulder. The air outside the dome carried a thick and smoky taste in her thoughts, like a million trees burning. She just wanted it to go away, along with the freezing cold and the scary white tiger-man.
Her mother and sister trailed five feet behind them, their arms locked together. Melanie’s stomach lurched every time Amanda threw a backward glance at the fuel truck. For all she knew, one more peek would turn the girl into a pillar of salt.
“Honey, don’t look. Just keep moving.”
“But there are still people back there.”
“Amanda . . .”
“We can’t just leave them!”
Melanie bit her lip and winced new tears. Though her daughter often wielded her morality like a cudgel, there was no denying the depth of her virtue. The girl was good to the core.
Five feet behind them, the female stranger shined a soft smile at Amanda. “You’re a noble one to worry, child, but little can be done. Even those who survive have short years ahead. I see the strings. I know the death that comes.”
Amanda had been nervously avoiding eye contact with the woman, but now drew a second look. She was a shade over six feet tall, with an immaculate face that put her anywhere between a weathered thirty and a blessed sixty. Whatever her age, she was jarringly beautiful, at least on the outside. Her dark eyes twinkled with instability, like matches over oil.
“W-what do you mean?” Amanda asked.
Melanie tugged her forward. “Don’t talk to her.”
“It’s no matter,” the woman replied. “Just take comfort that you have a future, my pretty rose. I’ve seen you, tall and red.”
“Leave her alone,” Melanie hissed.