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not do the birds justice.
Buzzards.
    There were scores of them, whole families, multitudes. Carrion birds, stooped over like hunchbacks in bell towers. And although he knew it was crazy, he had the disquieting feeling that they were all watching him.
    Carnivorous birds.
    It was insane, sure … but if they all decided to simultaneously swoop down off their perches and attack …
    A noise somewhere off to his left collected his attention. Alan turned and squinted. For a second he thought he could see the pale shape of a man wending through the trees. But the harder he looked for the figure, the more he became convinced it was just his imagination.
    When he looked up again he noticed some of the buzzards had moved closer together on a number of the lower branches of the giant, skeletal trees. That many birds and the night should have been a cacophony of shrill, earsplitting shrieks. But these birds were silent. They’d gathered on thelower branches of the trees while he wasn’t looking, as if creeping up on him for an ambush …
    Out of nowhere the absurdity of the situation struck him. Nervous, he laughed maybe a bit too loud, his eyes still on the collection of large birds—they didn’t seem disturbed by the sound—before retreating across the clearing toward the wooded path.
    But Alan could not find the path. The opening in the trees was now obscured by a dull mist. In fact, it appeared as if the mist itself had gotten caught in the boughs of the trees and tangled around their trunks like smoky strands of gossamer. A disturbing thought suddenly struck him:
The mist doesn’t want me to leave.
Trapped, captive, imprisoned forever. It was ridiculous, of course, but it still caused a cold butterfly to flutter to life in his stomach. He wanted to laugh again, if for no other reason than to fool his addled brain into clearheadedness, but decided against it. He had been lucky with the birds thus far. He didn’t want to press his luck further by startling them with mad laughter.
    For several minutes he wandered around the perimeter of the clearing, peering through the soupy mist in hopes of locating the path. He couldn’t retrace his footsteps because he’d left none behind. None that he could see, anyway. He knew
approximately
where the opening should be, as he had pretty much walked in a straight line from the end of the path to the clearing. But as he swam through the fog toward the place he assessed the path should have been, parting the cloudy air with his hands, he stumbled over and over again into a profusion of pine needles.
    Finally, when it seemed he would never find the pathagain and he started deliberating whether or not he should push his way through the goddamn trees and keep walking until he eventually staggered into his own backyard, he spied the dark hollow through the wall of fog. He went to it and crossed between the trees, stepping onto the dirt path. He spotted one of the luminous white stones up ahead in the woods.
    I checked here already,
he thought.
I know I did.
    Disquieted, he pushed on through the woods, refusing to look back over his shoulder the entire way.
    Alan wasn’t sure how long he’d actually been outside, stumbling through the clearing to find the path, but by the time he stepped into his backyard, the moon had repositioned itself in the sky. The night had cooled considerably, causing a chill to ripple through his body and his bare chest to prickle. For some reason, he felt fatigued, as if he had just returned from a long, arduous journey.
    He lit one final cigarette, taking his time walking around the side of the house toward the front porch. A strong breeze rustled the remaining leaves high in the trees. Finishing the cigarette, he looked across the street. All remained still and quiet.
Ghost town,
he thought. Which made him think of Heather.
    There was a police car parked farther down the street, a couple of houses away from Alan’s. He