Indigo Children.

The siren sounded three times. The first wail cut through the peace with vicious certainty of a guillotine. The second and third repeated the urgency of their predecessor, the high pitched warbles hammering home the warning song to all who lived in Mensen Ridge. Population 1034. That’s what the sign had said as he drove over the line of the town limits. Adrian never really saw the point in such disclaimers. If anything, he found them confusing. On one hand, he found it depressing. The human tally a stark reminder of the isolation out in these parts. A mere blimp of humanity lost in a sea of wilderness, cut off, adrift in its own time and place. And then, in that same likeness, he found it foreboding. There was something terrifying about a place so far removed. So, incestuous. They were worlds unto their own, mystic bastions where kings could still exist and outsiders were met with dubious looks and cast with suspicion. Good thing he was only passing through.

The heavy drone of the siren came as a relief, distracting the attention of the other patrons away from him. Sitting with a cup of coffee nestled between his hands, he could feel the locals’ prying stares crawl over his back. Dammit, he could see them in the mirror lining the back wall of the counter. Backwater eyes stuck to him like he was fly paper. Hushed whispers. Shaking heads. Ashes and dust, he hated places like this. But he knew better than to do anything about it. He didn’t need any more trouble. And he was only passing through. The sooner he finished his coffee, the sooner he could be on his way.

That was before the siren blasted through the air. And as the last of it echoed into the deep woodlands, the locals abandoned their tables and hurried out the diner. The parking lot outside turned into a vehicular O.K. Corral. Reverse lights illuminated the early evening air. Headlights scanned the surrounding trees, and tyres screeched against tar. In a matter of moments, the diner was empty. Quiet. He took a sip from his cup. Perhaps he’d get to finish his coffee in peace after all. “What was that all about,” he asked, lukewarm coffee rolling down the back of his tongue. “Tornado?” 

The man behind the counter was the quintessential effigy of a diner host. Tall, balding and fat. All wrapped up in a worn apron like a grease-stained present. The man took slow measured steps and came to a halt before him, hands resting neatly on the counter top. A name tag sat lopsided on the lapel of his apron. Jerry. Jerry’s Diner. Made sense. 

“You staying at the Wayfarer,” Jerry asked, ignoring the quip.  

“What?” 

“The inn,” he asserted, a seriousness overtaking his tone. In his eyes, concern consolidated. 

“No, I’m just passing through.” 

Jerry looked out through the windows. The velvet purple of early evening was beginning to settle on the trees. “It’ll be dark soon.”  

Adrian shifted in his stool and glanced over his shoulder at the darkening parking lot. “So?” 

Jerry leaned forward. The man suddenly seemed more ursine than human. “That siren. You hear it?” 

“Yeah, I heard it.”

“Well, it ain’t for no tornado. In these parts, people stay away from the dark. Get inside. Close the doors. Shut the windows. Seal the shutters and draw the curtains. ‘Round here you keep away when the dark comes. ‘Round here nighttime ain’t for regular folks.”

For the first time, Adrian noticed the thick curtains hanging on either side of the diner windows. “Why’s that?” 

Jerry stared at him with eyes as hard as stone. “Nightfall is for the indigo children.”

Adrian remained unperturbed.

“Look,” Jerry said, his hand coiling into fists. “Daytime is for us. Night is for them. It’s always been like that. Even before I was born. Folks who don’t respect that truce are never seen again. At least, not in the way the good Lord intended. So, you listen mister. Unless you want to be found strung up in a tree, your insides made to be your outsides, I’d suggest you get yourself a room at the Wayfarer. Still enough time to get into town before they shut their doors for the night.”

Ashes and dust. Adrian took one last gulp from his cup, and drained it to the dregs. “Thanks.” He paused to swallow some lingering coffee grind, and then dropped a few coins on the counter. “But, I’ll take my chances.” 

Adrian walked out of the diner, crossed the parking lot and got into his car. Darkness was falling quickly and flicked on his headlights. As he reversed he glanced in the rearview mirror and saw Jerry drawing the curtains across the windows, and for a moment, he thought he saw the man cross himself.

By the time he drove out the other side of the town, the sky was pitch black. Just as Jerry had said, every single door and window had been sealed shut. And not a soul wandered the streets. If he hadn’t seen any of the locals at the diner, he would’ve thought the town abandoned. Indigo children. He couldn’t believe the superstitious shit some of these backwater towns still hung onto. Yet, the zealous extent of their believe unnerved him, and he was glad to see the town disappear in the neon fade of his tail lights. 

The freeway stretched ahead into the darkness like an endless tongue. The only anchors to existence the vibrations of the engine beneath the seat, the steady rotation of the wheels against the blacktop and the whiny of the wind through the window. Soon the town limits would be coming up again, and then he’d be done with Mensen Ridge for good. Not too much longer, he thought. He drove on, expecting to the see the ‘See You Again Soon’ sign emerge from the darkness, but it never came. The headlights of the car shone into the abyss, and all that could be seen was the yellow line reaching into oblivion. And then something fluttered past his window. It was brief but it had been there. A blunt shudder thundered across the car roof. Adrian glanced in the rearview mirror expecting to see something bounce off the trunk but all he saw was pitch black night trailing in his wake. The flutter came again, this time against the passenger window. Again, it was brief, but he caught a glimpse of white pass through the darkness. Another series of shudders, as if something rolled across the car, hammered against the roof. 

And then something strange happened. The wind through the window vanished, the hum of tyres fell silent and the engine cut out. Adrian steered the car to the side of the road as it rolled to a standstill. Outside, in the void, shapes drifted through the shadow. 

“Ashes and dust,” he mumbled.

He opened the car door and stepped out into the night. He moved around to the front of the car and stood in the cone cast by the car headlights. Out in the sky, there came the children, dozens of them floating on the still air like dandelions, all dressed in white nightgowns, eyes glinting like marbles. The aberrant flock congregated around him. Feet, caked with black soil and crooked root, skimmed along the beams of light, as they descended upon him. The headlights flickered, the cone of light faltered, and then all went dark, and a voice came out of the black treacle.

“Ashes and dust,” it whispered.