Direct Strike. Lorelei Buckley

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      “We’ll find the right medication, but you have to let me help you.”

      “I don’t need help. I need my son alive.” She thumbed the Off button and tossed the phone on the floor.

      It rang nonstop. She threw a pillow over the noisemaker and scooted higher in bed. She eyed the windows. A chalky mist swirled against the black backdrop of night. It reminded her of a photo shoot she’d had at the dessert factory. Vanilla ice cream and chocolate syrup spiraled in a snail shell design on a black porcelain plate. Milo had gone along and almost ruined a perfect shot with his finger. She should have let him. So many things she would have done better.

      A quick crimson hue veiled the bedroom.

      She watched the window for signs of another unique outburst and witnessed a spear of blood red lightning.

      “Fantastic.” She advanced to the glass. The next flash appeared normal. She leaned forward and examined the land. In daylight the miles of woods and mountains overwhelmed her, a fairytale bloated with a hundred shades of green, happy sunshiny sky and a mesmeric frothy river. She related to the night, to its mysteries.

      Sparks of light danced on muted boulders. A bush near the driveway had tinier shrubs at its base, transforming the plant into a top hat. Beyond the rocks, a pine tree stood in front of two others, each wider than the next. A grand illusion if captured at the right angle.

      Though she had no interest in resuming professional photography, she’d at least consider snapping pictures for fun. She turned for her camera, buried somewhere under a heap of clothes, and noticed her jeans. She bent over and slipped them on, straightened and glanced outside again.

      To the left was a hill with a fairly steep drop, but she could see where the ground leveled at the forest’s edge. Lightning flashed in shorter increments and revealed a change in the density of darkness near the tree line.

      A foraging raccoon? She blinked and refocused. A coyote? A child?

      A drug interaction.

      She tucked a bothersome hair around her ear, rubbed her filmy eyes and pressed her face to the window. Her heart jammed. A young boy, two or three years old, sat beneath a hut of branches.

      “What the…”

      He had no shoes and wore tattered clothing. He appeared to be playing with rocks.

      Panic surged, and she hit the glass several times. “Baby boy, don’t move! I’m coming, hang on!”

      Zoey rushed to the doorway, her body zinging with dread and wonder. She staggered down the stairs, passed an empty office nook, managed to miss both sofas, and poured out the front door. Cedar wafted from the deck.

      Frigid air iced her arms. She massaged her skin and assessed her whereabouts. Plush forest grew on hills that bled into mountains that vanished in the smoky mist laid by a looming storm. Lightning highlighted her route. She sprinted from the porch onto the crisp lawn and headed downhill toward the woods. Immersed in darkness, she stopped and focused.

      Thunder boomed. So did her heart when she spotted the boy. He seemed to be drawing abstract art in the dirt with a stick.

      “Don’t be scared. I’m coming!” Her long legs carried her speedily across the earth. “Stay there, honey, I’m on my way.”

      Somehow she’d lost sight of him. She halted. She should’ve seen him, but didn’t.

      “Don’t run from me, little man. I won’t hurt you.”

      Shivering, Zoey blanketed her arms with her hair and waited for a spear of lightning. When the ground lit, she raced the decline, tripping on a vine that threaded a spongy patch of grass. She plummeted and stopped rolling a few feet from the child.

      His eyes were dreadfully sad, and he clutched handfuls of soil.

      “I’m here now.” She wobbled to her feet.

      Slowly she entered his creation of choppy stick writings and tiny mountains of dirt, but he wasn’t there. “Where did you go? Don’t be afraid, baby boy. I can help you. You’ll be safe with me.”

      Flickering spider veins spread overhead like plant roots, as odd a vision as the toddler in the woods. A crackle jumpstarted her pulse. She faced the forest and its fresh pine-scented breath, and saw the boy within reach.

      “You precious little guy, what are you doing out here? It’s cold and dark, and you could hurt yourself.”

      He held his arms up and gently bounced on his butt, urging her to lift him.

      Zoey leaned forward and grabbed the baby—grabbed nothing.

      “Not possible.”

      She looked in all directions, certain he couldn’t have gone far.

      Leaves rustled, and the wind hummed.

      “Where are you?” She searched for his drawings and metropolis of dirt, but all proof had vanished with his body.

      “No!” She confronted the wooded labyrinth. “I know what I saw! What did you do with him? Where’s the kid?”

      Lightning flashed incessantly. Zoey squatted and ripped at the shrubs. With scratched and blotchy fingers, she rose and kicked a tree trunk with her bare foot. “What the hell did you do with the boy? Where is he?” She tied her annoying hair in a knot. “You can’t just pluck children from earth like dandelions. They’re not weeds, goddamnit! Where is he?” She raised a rotted log and pitched it at the child-chomping monster she knew lived Out There.

      She stepped on a stone and toppled to the ground.

      “Son of a bitch.” She lay on her back under evasive lightning and blunt thunder, and when she’d forced the pain from her foot, she stood.

      “I know what I saw.” She stammered uphill. Breathless, she paused on a spongy patch of grass and briefly eyed the malicious vine that had caused her earlier fall.

      Lightning webbed the sky and tinted the blackened land with blinding white.

      Zoey tasted metal. She refreshed her teeth with her tongue and saw the scorching red fist that punched her in the shoulder. Dumbfounded, she flew through the air and landed on her backside. Her head pounded, brain-splitting. She gasped at the smoke snaking off her flesh. Right before she went unconscious.

       Chapter 2

      “Nurse!” Zoey winced. Her right shoulder, wrapped in gauze, burned, and she might as well have chugged a bottle of lava. She massaged her neck and then canopied her delicate eyes from the harsh fluorescents. An IV dangled from her hand.

      “Anyone?” She coughed and the rawness of her throat produced a tear. Her organs and bones roasted, and she lay on the nurse’s button, terrified of cooking alive.

      Botanical wallpaper bordered the room and sparked memories—darkness, trees, a tot in the woods with enormous brown eyes sadder than starvation. Not possible. She recoiled and blamed insomnia and drugs and incompetent medical staff for allowing her to panic.

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