The mayor did not appear to have any intention of releasing my arm from his stronghold. I attempted to shrug him off, but his meaty grip refused to budge.

"Ms. B., would you come with me, please?" The mayor's tone and gentle tugging on my arm made it clear that this was not a request. I mentally sized him up, debating whether I should try and incapacitate him and make a run for it but decided against it. He had at least 100 pounds on me, and attempting to flee would blow my cover for certain, if it wasn't blown already. Besides, I had nowhere to go.

I tried one last gambit, feigning control of the situation.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Lockley, but I really must be going. This is the last bus out tonight, and my parents will be sorely disappointed if I'm not on it. You have children, so you must understand." I tried flashing him one of my winning smiles.

He looked away briefly, absently running his fingers over his pepper-grey mustache while still clutching my arm tightly. Then he spoke, and there was a strange quality in his voice. "Yes, we do worry about our children, don't we?" His expansive smile returned, but I thought I saw a hint of desperation too, a slight quivering in his extra chin. "Ms. B. you'll have to take a bus out tomorrow. Right now, I must insist that you come with me. There's no time to waste."

I had little choice, fight him and flee nowhere, or humor him and break free on my own terms. Jake had said I would be dead by Monday. Maybe they wanted me alive until then? Small comfort, but it would have to do. Lockley must have noticed my body's acquiescence, because he gently loosened his grip.

******************

The Portland bus had stopped picking up fares. With the flash of a badge, the charcoal grey-suited man behind the wheel had commandeered it two stops earlier, leaving the driver and some disgruntled passengers by the side of the road. A replacement bus would be by soon. Not that he was the type to be concerned.

******************

We were walking, Lockley setting a brisk pace for such a big man. I was trying not to show any fear. "Where are we going?"

"You'll see." His reply was gruff, and he seemed uncomfortable. He was staring straight ahead.

Time for some bravado. I pulled out the cell phone I'd been carrying since I broke radio silence and hit redial. Lockley didn't notice. I put it to my ear without breaking pace.

It rang once, then I heard a series of clicks.

"Agent Wilkes, who is this?" They must have forwarded the number so I would not have to go through Chomsky again. Thank God for small miracles.

"Mom? It's me."

At the sound of my voice, Lockley turned and stared at me in horror, as if he did not know how to react. I continued the charade.

"Mom, I have some bad news. I'm not going to make the Portland bus tonight."

I heard silence on the other end, and I thought for a moment that Wilkes wouldn't understand. But he did.

"Stay on the line as long as you can, Agent." Wilkes started clattering those keys again.

"Just my mother," I said quickly to the mayor, as if this was prefectly normal. "Don't want them to worry."

"No Mom, nothing's wrong." I glanced at the mayor, who just stood there uncertainly. "The mayor's called an emergency school board meeting tonight, and I have to be there." Lockley looked agitated when I referenced him. I needed to tread carefully.

I pretended to listen to my mother speaking back to me, but there was just more typing.

"Yes, I know Dad was looking forward to the barbecue tonight. I'm sorry, tell him I will make it up to him. I promise. In fact, tell him I'm going to push them for an extra day off next weekend considering the short notice." Lockley was pretending to ignore me now.

"Agent, your backup is arriving shortly, and he will find you." Backup? Wilkes disconnected. Dammit, why does he keep doing that?

"I love you too, Mom." I said to the dead line, and closed the phone.

"Thanks." I said to the mayor, as if he'd authorized the phone call. A tiny victory, but it made me feel a lot better.

We walked in silence the rest of the way, passing the businesses that corridored Main Street. The storefronts were dark under colored canopies, signs darting in and out of visibility in the flickering streetlamp lights. Daltrey's Dry Goods. Joe Flannery, RX. Sparkle Cleaners. Thomas Shea, Esq. First Trust and Fidelity Bank. Though I'd only been in this town a year, I knew all the owners on a first name basis, at least I would call them by their first names. They called me Ms. B, like their children did. It was strange to see this area after dark with nobody around. Very strange. No late night proprietor, locking up the shop. Not even a moving car in sight.

We arrived at the tall, columned government building which stood regally at the end of the street. This was home to the town police station, courthouse, and city hall - a one-stop shop for all the local branches of government. Mayor Lockley entered a code on a keypad and pulled open the ornate wooden door, holding it open for me. His face had dropped the smile and reflected only cold determination.

I glanced back up Main Street and my heart almost stopped in my chest. At the very top of the street, I saw them, gazing at us with an eerie passivity. There must have been 30 or 40 of them now, a silent, hand-holding mob. I wanted to call out to them, and at the same time, I wanted to run away from them. The mayor made my decision for me. Roughly, he grabbed my arm and yanked me into the building, pushing the door closed behind him. I heard the lock re-engage.

"Come," he said, pulling me with him, all pretense of civility gone. "This way."

I had no choice but to go along. I consoled myself with thought of my mysterious FBI backup, rescuing me if necessary. Hopefully, they didn't send Chomsky.

**********************

"Change of plans."

The man listened without reaction. He was well accustomed to field work where changes were the norm not the exception. "Go ahead."

"She has been intercepted. She referenced the mayor and a school board meeting. You will have to find her."

"Everything else remains the same?"

"Yes. You are still to proceed as planned. The threat level has not changed, and the protocol is clear."

"Understood." The man parked the bus in the woods a couple miles outside the town, obscured from the view of any passing motorists. Not an easy task, but necessary to avoid detection and suspicion for a couple of days. He grabbed his briefcase and set out on foot to find the woman.

***********************

The mayor led me down the hall, and we turned a corner, reaching an office door decorated by a gold placard: Hiram Lockley, Mayor. He dialed another code in the keypad, and opened it up. I could hear people inside, talking, shouting. We walked in.

I don't know what I expected. Torture, perhaps. It certainly wasn't this. The mayor's spacious office was filled with a dozen or more people, most of whom I recognized as parents. The only non-parent was Sheriff Tate, fully uniformed, standing next to the door with arms folded and gun holstered.

Marcus Thomason was huddled on the couch with one arm around Irene her face in her hands. Brenda Fuller, Amy's mom, had been engaged in a heated conversation with Melvin Tucker whose daughter, Cindy, was in the same class. I noticed several other parents were sitting quietly on the couch, or in chairs, and a few of them were sobbing softly. What kind of meeting was this? The room fell silent as everyone suddenly noticed me.

"What's she doing here?" Melvin demanded, apparently to the mayor.

Before he could respond, a voice sounded from the corner. "We had no choice, Melvin. She was about to leave town." I looked up to see the voice's owner, Bill Daltrey, staring at me as if he'd never seen me before. He'd seen me plenty, and not always clothed.

I made it a rule never to get too involved, romantically, with people in the towns I was assigned. Since I rarely stayed anywhere longer than a few months, there was no reason for complications. This did not include casual flings and occasional one-night stands. A girl gets lonely, and it's not like I gave a damn about my cover identity's reputation in the long run.

With Bill, there was something more, something deeper, that made me end things abruptly. We had started seeing each other after a parent-teacher conference where we found ourselves talking more about ourselves than his son, Daniel. He had invited me out for drinks and things progressed from there. It wasn't his looks, though he was ruggedly attractive, balding with dignity, with gentle eyes and rough hands. Nor was it the lovemaking, which was pleasant and satisfying without being overwhelming.

It was the night he opened up to me about the tragic car accident that took his pregnant wife's life 5 years earlier. Bill had been driving. A truckdriver, awake for three days straight on a cross-country run, had swerved into Bill's lane. Bill walked away relatively unscathed, but his wife and unborn child weren't so lucky. That's when I figured out why I felt this connection to him. We had both lost loved ones to tragedy, and we both felt guilty for surviving.

Bill never got over the sudden ending to our relationship, pressing me for weeks for some kind of explanation. I just kept saying things were moving too fast and I needed time to sort things out. That was three months ago. Bill's scathing look made it clear that he was not interested in reconciling. At least not tonight.

"Bill! What the hell is going on!" I demanded. "Why are you holding me here against my will."

For all his bluster at the bus stop, Lockley just looked embarrassed by my accusation. He started in, haltingly, all savvy eloquence lost.  "I..I'm sorry, Ms. B. It's just we..we have a situation. The children, you know. My Hannah started acting strangely and then she didn't come home last night, and..."

Bill cut him off. "We have some questions for you, and we need you to answer them honestly." We? Was Bill in charge? I nodded, warily.

"You've seen the children? On the streets?" I nodded again. "Then you know our children have gone wrong. Evil." There were gasps and protestations, but Bill waved them off. "Yes, evil. Daniel too. They go out every night in those packs, and when you try and stop them, well we've seen some of the things they've done, and what they're capable of..." One mother began sobbing uncontrollably, as another tried to console her. Evil children? What was going on in this town?

"The main question we need answered, Ms. B., the question that has become of the utmost important to us right now is this." Bill paused, and fixed his eyes on me. "Who are you?"

**********************

The man studied the lay of the town without much difficulty. Most of these rural towns had a similar structure. The school, the church and cemetery, Main Street. He noted the lack of any people on the streets, but this was not unexpected. He saw a sign pointing to the town center, and followed it.

**********************

I tried to defuse the tension by responding coyly. "You know who I am, Bill, better than anyone in this room." The sheriff was a close second, but Bill didn't know that. "Bill, the children are evil? I saw them acting strangely tonight, but...."

Bill shook his head. "Not just tonight. About a week ago, Daniel disappeared one night. He was just gone. I went crazy, called the sheriff and everything. But in the morning he was back in bed like nothing happened. He didn't seem to remember not being there all night. Or the next night."

Brenda spoke up. "Same thing happened with Amy. I started keeping her home during the day, so I could watch her but she seemed normal and remembered nothing. Then Mark tried to follow her the next night and..." Brenda trailed off, and another parent gave her a hug. Where was Mark?

"We can't follow them." Bill said, with finality.

"This kind of thing had been reported, on and off, since last year." Sheriff Tate's voice was low and gravelly. 20 years of smoking can do that. "Children disappearing for a few consecutive nights, then back to normal like it never happened."

"The sheriff put all us parents in touch," Bill nodded to Tate, "and we started looking for a connection between the children, all 8 and 9 year-olds, and anything new that has happened in this town." He pointed to me, finger rigid with accusation. "You. You've had all these children in your classroom, between last year and this one. Out of nowhere you started teaching here, in this town. You knew nobody. And nobody knew you."

"That's not true!" I cut in, diving into my cover story. "Old man Edwards knew my father from the war. My dad spoke of this town fondly, and when my last school was closed for renovations this was the closest teaching job I could find. You know all this, Bill."

"Do I? Edwards has been dead since '06. I looked into your job history, and guess what? All your former schools are still undergoing renovations. All of your personal references? Their numbers are mysteriously out of service. We could not find a single person who could comment on even knowing you." I cursed myself for letting my fake references expire. After a year of teaching, I never expected my background to be scrutinized like this. Bill went on. "I even had Luke try and research you on that computer of his..."

"Not one Google hit!" Luke Tanner, the local technology wizard, nasally cried out.

Bill moved in close, his eyes narrowing, voice cold and steady. "So, I'm asking again. Who are you?"

*********************

Walking down Main Street, he spotted the throng of darkly-dressed children silently holding hands. They stared at him as he passed, and he studiously ignored them. Their presence here was not unexpected either. Only their endgame was.

**********************

The eyes in the room had turned angry on me, accompanied by shouting voices and accusations. I suddenly felt like a Salem Witch about to be burned at the stake. Melvin was approaching me menacingly. "Who the hell are you?" he shouted at me.

"I don't know what you all are talking about!" I protested. "I'm just a teach..." The skin on my face exploded in a thousand tiny points of pain. As I fell to the ground, I saw Melvin's red-face leering at me from above. I cried out and covered my face with my hands, as he cocked his fist back to hit me again.

"STOP IT!" Mayor Lockley, silent all this time, pushed Melvin against the wall with sudden ferocity. "What the hell is wrong with you? We're here to help our kids, not beat up women. Do that on your own time." Maybe he was trying to make up for his earlier pushiness, but I still appreciated his help.

"It's her! She did something to Cindy! I'm gonna KILL HER!" Melvin was struggling to get free. Sheriff Tate laid a hand on his arm, and he stopped.

I think the sudden violence must have shocked folks in the room, because they stopped looking like they wanted to string me up. Someone handed me a ice pack from a first aid kit, and I held it to my face. Someone else helped me up. It was Bill.

"Tell us the truth." His voice was pleading. "We just want our children back."

After 12 years with the bureau, I prided myself on my ability to analyze a situation accurately. I hated doing this in front of a room full of people, but letting them continue to think I stole their children was worse. It was time to come clean, at least partially.

"Here's the truth. I am a fully licensed teacher with a Masters in Education. And I care deeply about your children. I'm worried about them just like you are." I took a deep breath, and made eye contact with Bill. "I am also a federal agent, working undercover for the FBI." I paused to let this sink in. Silence, then a few murmurs around the room.

"How do we know she's telling us the truth?" Melvin demanded. I owed him a generous smack, and this just made me want to pay up sooner.

"I can give the sheriff my ID number to run through the law enforcement database. Does that work for you?" Melvin just scowled, but the sheriff nodded and pulled out his notepad and pen. I wrote it down for him, and he excused himself to go to his office at the other part of the building.

Whispered conversations ensued, as we waited awkwardly for the sheriff to return. To his credit, he wasted no time and was back in less than 10 minutes. He opened the door and stuck out his hand to me.

"It's a real pleasure to meet you, Special Agent Molly Gardner."

*********************

The man studied the keypad with disdain. He opened his briefcase and removed a toolkit and a small spray bottle equipped with a tiny UV light. Four digit combinations from 0-9 had 10,000 possible codes, but narrowing it down to four keys reduced that number to 256. Still too many, but sometimes the lazy went with easy to remember combinations, so he'd try those first before doing it the hard way with the toolkit.

The UV light revealed 2468 as the often pressed digits. He got it on the first try.

*********************

"Why did they send you here?"
"Does the FBI know what's going on?"
"Can you help our children?"

The questions were hurled at me from all directions, and I held up my hands. "Please, this is not a press conference. Please." They quieted down. "My job was simply to observe things in this town, until my next assignment. I've been to a dozen towns just like this one, doing the same thing, and I've never seen this, whatever is going on with your children, I've never seen it anywhere. Until tonight. That's all I know." I held back about Jake's warning, that I would be dead by Monday. I would share that information after I found out more from this group, or more specifically, from their ringleader.

I walked over to Bill, repressing the urge to apologize to him for my cover-up. For our breakup. Time enough for that, I hoped. "Do we really need all these people here? I get a sense you're calling the shots here, so can we please send most of these folks home?" Bill nodded. Bill really was in charge. A simple store-owner, running this investigation? Something felt off there.

"Folks, we're going to break up this party now, but we'll keep you posted on any new developments. Sheriff Tate will escort each of you home."

As if on cue, the door opened, and a man in a charcoal-grey suit and cold eyes stood there scanning the room.

"You!" I was as shocked to see him as any agent would be. If he was here, it meant high alert. Threat level red. I'd have preferred Chomsky.

The last time I'd seen this man was twelve years ago. My husband, my daughter, and most of my small town were lying in bodybags in the quarantined hangar, and I was alone in a white room with a table and a notepad. He had come into the room, and I'll never forget the next two hours. I'll never forget his cold, unblinking eyes.

The last time I'd seen this man I wasn't an agent. I was a suspect.