No sounds carried over. She looked around. Even the Kroons, their barking, was gone. She couldn’t see them, either. They hadn’t been that far behind her. So where were they? Nowhere. The faint breeze she’d seen brushing the tops of the grass, had felt against her skin, had disappeared. The air here was completely still. Even the sky seemed to be shut off from her now. She could still see the overcast grayness, saw a spark of lightning over the meadow, but she never heard the crack of thunder that should’ve followed. A moment after that she saw rain, faint droplets, falling in the distance, a rain shower throughout the park. But not here. Everywhere but here. Not a drop fell on the playground. It was so quiet, in fact, that she heard her own footsteps on the concrete. And when she reached the padded play area she could hear the plastic wheeze beneath her. There wasn’t anything but some fencing separating this area from the rest of the park, but it was as if the playground’s fences were locking the world out, but maybe also locking Loochie in.
