Excerpt #1 - From the Chapter "Monday Morning in Glenhill, Iowa"

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The alarm clock clicked from 6:04 to 6:05 a.m., and let out a sadistic buzz which jolted Maggie from a deep, comfortable sleep. With great effort and a disgusted moan, she reached out and smacked the top of the clock, hitting the snooze button for the first of three routine extra ten minutes. The room was quiet and almost completely dark; a faint cool breeze played with the sheer curtains that hung on the open window. In Maggie’s estimation, these were the ideal sleeping conditions—a fact that only added to the cruelty of it being morning already.

Bzzzzz. Smack! Wrapped in her favorite blanket and surrounded by a mountain of pillows, she wandered back and forth between awake and asleep—one moment aware of her surroundings, the next, slipping effortlessly into the beginnings of nonsensical dreams.

Bzzzzz. Smack! She pulled herself upright and sat, half asleep, on the edge of the bed. Her eyelids dropped, and her head bobbled around as she nodded back off. The sudden sensation that she was falling brought her instantly back to life with a jolt; her eyes popped open, but then blinked slowly shut. She’d just started to doze off again, when she realized that she had seen something.

“What in the . . . ?” she mumbled as she forced herself to wake up. She rubbed the sleep from her eyes and squinted toward the other side of the room.

There, outside her second story window, two bright white lights—no bigger than a dime—darted around behind the fluttering curtains. They zipped to the right, stopped, and held still for a second, and then spiraled down together to the left. They made a faint but peculiar noise as they jumped from place to place—like a cross between static on a television and chirping crickets.

Maggie had been a little skittish since the break-in; but at this moment, curiosity was stronger than fear, so she stood and started toward the window. As she walked, the floorboards of the old house creaked ominously and her confidence in the situation rapidly began to decline. By the time she reached the window, she had to force herself to stay calm. “C’mon, Maggs! Don't be such a wimp!” she scolded under her breath. “It's probably just lightning bugs!”

She reached out her hand and pulled back the curtain for a better look. All at once, two more little lights zipped up and joined the first.

Maggie jumped;her breath caught in her chest and her heart pounded. An uneasy feeling stirred—the feeling that she was being watched. She inched her way backwards. “It’s okay,” she breathed. “They’re just bugs.”

The four tiny illuminations whizzed around in formation for a second or two,and then . . . the lights started to multiply. Out of nowhere and everywhere all at once—hundreds and hundreds of bright, piercing, white orbs whirled and buzzed outside her open window, creating a riotous screech. Maggie slapped her hands over her ears as the bizarre noise grew louder. . . and louder. . . and louder.
Blinding flashes, like bolts of lightning, burst through the window and ricocheted around the room, creating an eerie strobe effect. They crashed into the walls and the floor, and made the whole room shake.

Maggie’s fear grew to sheer terror! She turned and tried to run, but as she did, the floor bumped violently, knocking her to her knees with a painful smack. She screamed, but her voice was drowned out by the horrendous buzzing of the chaotic little lights. She curled up into a ball on the floor, hands clasped tightly over her ears, eyes squeezed shut–and begged, “Oh please . . . oh please . . . oh please! Someone help me!”

Just then, her bedroom door swung open. Within a split second, the multitude of lights vanished; the quaking stopped, and the dreadful noise came to an abrupt halt. All was as it had been before. . . .