Hector saw the shadows shift and he clicked on the button atop the watch to pop the front open. The hands of the watch were quivering with effort to continue forward, skipped and jumped irregularly, twitching as they reached 10:24. The time of Stella’s death.
He tried winding it again, but the whole mechanism refused to shift, as though the gears had gained a mind of their own.
He closed it, pocketed the watch as he started running toward Alva and Molly.
They were in a field, beside water, in tall grass… He could see the sun dancing on the waters, could smell the mists on the air, a sickening mix of lavender and sugar.
“We have to go!” he screamed, trying to pull Alva away from the strange shadows. Screams rose from within the bus, echoing in the still air around them.
“Not without Pete!” Alva screamed, pulling out of his grasp and running to a window that was still out of the shadows, her sister looking at her through it, the only one not screaming in the bus.