Page 8 - As the Cold Wind Blows Mark Jones

Howard picked up the receiver and dialled the number. Ring after ring was telling him that
something was wrong. He knew she hadn’t gone out. Min didn’t walk to the local shop after

dark as there had been several attacks made on people who had gone out alone. No one had
been caught yet and so it was safer to shop and go about other business in daylight. Howard
was worried. ‘Where are you? What’s happened? The drones,’ he thought, ‘maybe they’ve

got to her! I can’t go back there!’

Howard was afraid. He thought Min might be dead, having been seen talking to someone
from Silwall. ‘I should have kept away. She would still be alive if it wasn’t for me!’

He tried again to contact her but there was still no answer. Howard truly believed Min was

dead and a superior race was behind it, as they were with everything that the people of Silwall
had so far experienced.

But Min was very much alive although under a strange hypnotic spell. Howard had jumped
to the wrong conclusion, but who could blame him after witnessing what had happened to

Mabel and Imelda. ‘What shall I do?’ Falling into the armchair, Howard – exhausted from his
vigil the previous night and with no sleep – had soon joined Min cascading through reels of

historical events in his mind. It was as though he was actually there, watching it all happen.
Suddenly, in some lost and unknown time and place, turning into an alleyway, Howard couldn’t

believe his eyes. In front of him, just visible through the darkness, stood a figure almost in
silhouette.
“Min, is that you?” he called.

The figure walked towards him out of the shadows. “Yes, it’s me,” she smiled.
“Where the hell are we?” Howard asked.

Min looked around, but had no answer. “I don’t know. I don’t even know if it’s real.”
“Not real,” said Howard, reaching out to touch a wall. He shot back as his hand
disappeared through the bricks. Min tried it herself with the same reaction. “Oh my God,

what’s happened to us?”
“We need to find out where we are, Min,” Howard walked to the end of the dark and narrow

alley. He looked across at a row of old terraced houses that seemed out of place somehow.
Howard couldn’t get his bearings. Min stood alongside him, equally baffled by it all.

Everything was eerie, their voices distant and echoing.

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