“And grass, like small feet following...”

That's from a poem I know.

It's also from a life I live—and still live.

Angus called me one afternoon to say he'd figured out how the six children had disappeared. Wouldn't tell me on the phone. Said he had to show me or I wouldn't believe him. So I tagged along, mostly to humor him.

Suddenly he grabbed my arm. “It's beginning!”

From the hill, in the shade of the old oak, we could see the whole park.

I squinted. “I don't see anything.”

“Look!” He grabbed my face and turned it. “See the grass? See it moving?”

“It's the wind, Angus.”

“No!” He shook his head, staring at the approaching ripples.

“No, it isn't. Come on—get up! Now!” He headed for the lowest branches of the tree. “Come on!”

I admit I felt a little panicked. That's the thing with Angus—he's not just a whacko, he's an infectious whacko.

“Did you hear them?” Angus asked, after the breeze had passed us by.

“Hear what?”

“The children. They were screaming.”

“Angus, that was the wind howling through the branches.”

He shook his head again and pointed to the grass. “That's not the wind. It's hundreds of little, invisible monsters, running across the park. Monsters with tiny feet.”

We sat in the tree for thirty minutes.

Finally he said, “You'd better go to work. Run to the car, and meet me here later.”

“You're not coming?”

“Tell them I'm sick. Now go, while the wind's not blowing.”

I went. Once inside the car, I paused for a moment, watching Angus watching the ground. I saw him call something out. I wound down the window. “I can't hear you!” I yelled.

Then he dropped from the tree, and started running.

The wind hit the car before Angus reached it, the strongest gust yet. It sounded exactly like a scream as it forced its way through the air vents-and suddenly he wasn't anywhere to be seen.

I spent the day in the park. I never did find Angus-but I found his shoe, half buried in the ground, as though the grass had grown around it, like the shoe had always been there.

I'm in the oak tree now, watching.

The grass ripples, the wind comes, and he's right.

It's filled with screams.