Chapter 15
The warm night drew families out to a local park set amongst a network of suburban streets. Lit by the surrounding street lights, on an evening like this the park is in use even after the sun has gone down.
At the far end of the rectangular shaped park surrounded by a ring of trees all perfectly spaced apart, a young woman sits on a bench holding a sleeping newborn while her husband chases their five year old son around the playground. The boy squeals with delight as his father catches him and lifts him up into the air before putting him down and starting the chase over again. All the while other young families enjoy the space along with them.
Soon enough though, the warm night is no longer enough to keep them out so the mother places the sleeping baby in a pram and calls her husband and son for the short trek down the street to their home.
They move off with the husband carrying the boy who promptly falls asleep in his arms. They talk quietly together and pay no attention to the car that has been sitting beside the park since before they arrived and which now starts moving in their direction driving slowly past them up the street before pulling over a short distance ahead.
The occupant was seated across the street from the park in the car long before the sun went down and remained there patiently as people came and went. The park was visited by families throughout the afternoon, evening and night but the occasional jogger also enjoyed the space. None of them noticed the man in the car observing them.
He watched as the young couple moved off with their two sleeping children, started the car and waited for them to pick a direction before moving off ahead of them. He waited further along the street to see where they would head next.
Not far along though, only a little further than where the car stopped, the couple turn up a driveway into a modest house. They go inside; the interior lights bleed out through the curtain on the window to the left of the front door for a moment before blacking out. The car creeps slowly past the house and in to the night.