The walls of her prison seemed to smother her as she sat in her solitude.  She would have only limited contact with the outside world, and the injustice of it all made her sick to her stomach.  Her guards would have no mercy.  She was doomed to carry out a sentence that she deemed unfair.  This was her fate.  She understood it, even if she could not accept it.

Audrey did as shew as told.  She sat and thought about the circumstances that had led to her being grounded.  Her parents had been irate.  She had been grounded for sneaking out of the house (which she had done) and she had also been grounded for lying about why she had sneaked out of the house (which she had not done).  She should have been a hero.  Had they just believed her she could have been solely responsible for having saved the world.  They hadn't believed her.  As things stood, she might just have to stand back and watch the world fall apart, and at the very end they would look at her, with tears in their eyes and say, "oh Audrey, how can you ever forgive us?"  "If we had only known... if we had only listened..."  And she would lookat them with sympathetic eyes and say that she understood,  as life as they knew it ceased to exist.

She looked out her window, that no longer had a trelace leading down the side of the house.  She could still see Mr. Whittaker's house, with it's tall fence that left just enough room between the pickets to see vague details of the secrets that were behind it.  It was common knowledge to all the kids in the neighborhood that Mr. Flannigan was some sort of monster or at least a true villian.  Most of the parents in the neighborhood seemed to blindly cling to the idea that he was just an old man who didn't like to be bothered.  NOw Audrey could say with certainty that she knew better, though she was no longe as certain as to whether he was a monster or even a villian.  He might be an ally.  Now, he alone, might have to fight off the scourge that could bring humanity to it's knees... and all because her parents thought she had an extremely over-active imagination.  It had all started with a light...

.. well, a light and a C in science.  Audrey needed extra credit badly.  She'd never had a C in her life.  She'd had a B- or two, but she'd always managed to keep her grades above a C.  Report cards were two weeks away, and she needed something exciting to show Mrs. Science Teacher.  She thought she saw her answer glowing behind Mr. Whittaker's fence.  A bright glow kept flashing in the night.  She could only imagine what kind of lightning bug might be putting off such a light.  Maybe, just maybe, it was a whole new kind of lightning bug.  For whatever reason, the thought never crossed her mind that it might not be a bug at all.  It was far too late to just go gallping down the stairs.  It was past her bedtime... and if she was caught sneaking out, it would open the door for all sorts of questions... and might require that she confess her horrendous grade to her parents.  The likelyhood of not getting caught while escaping by any conventional means were slim to none.  She had to simply find a non conventional means of escape.  She looked out her window.  She'd always wondered if she could climb down the trellace, but she'd always been far too afraid to try it.  desperate times called for desperate measures though.  Now was no time for cowards.  She held her breath as she wiggled the screen out of place.  She put one foot onto the trellace and then the other.  She started a slow climb downwards.  As the trellace started moving away from the house, she realized what a bad idea climbing down it really was.  She had to move quicker.  One foot, and then the other.  One foot and then the other.  She heard a terrible creaking followed by an even more terrible cracking.  The trellace came crashing down with her still trying to scramble down it.  Well, she was outside of the hosue.  She was on the ground.  She was uninjured.  She waited momentarily for a light to spring on inside of her parents bedroom.  No light.  She breathed a sigh of relief.  At least she'd have some time to come up with a good story about the destruction she'd already caused.

She took a deep breath and started toward Mr. Whittaker's house.  Mr. Whittaker's house looked very much like every other house in the neighborhood.  It was a fairly large Victorian styled house.  It had plenty of windows (that were always kept well draped) and a **section** that reminded Audrey of a tower.  Several of the houses were built somewhat like this, but when you looked closer, there was something just slightly different about Mr. Whittaker's house.  Most who didn't know the neighborhood, couldn't put their finger on it.  Some said it was erie.  Some said it was just slightly off centered.  The truth of the matter was that it was the oldest house on the street.  At one point it had been the only house on the street.  The whole area had once belonged to the Whittakers, but Mr. Whittaker's grandfather had sold off most of the land, with the exception of the house Mr. Whittaker lived in and the exceptionally large lot that it sat on.

Audrey couldn't tell if Mr. Whittaker was even home.  She edged closer to the fence.  It seemed as  though it loomed over her.  She could almost make out bits of the odd little storm shelter that she knew was somewhere behind the fence.